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Howdy folks .... quick intro: I'm a very old hand in terms of loving the dark skies, etc but never owned, and very rarely even looked through, a decent scope that engenders in one a love of astronomy and the heavens above. Experiences with others' scopes has been with nothing but fraught with bad optics, smeary results, painfull attempts at fine tuning, etc. Have decided to get out and buy a "quality" scope, budget is really tight at present but have a new job working shiftwork so often I'm awake a lot at night and there's few other things you can do by yourself in the dark :-)
Anyway .... choosing a first scope .. like many others here I've thought seriously about a good Dobson, big as I can afford which is only 8-10" probably short term. However while doing heaps of research I did get very keen on something like a Meade ETX. Must admit the idea of a GOTO system appeals hugely to me at present, though the pricing has put me right off the ETX models at this time anyway.
Through friend in the states I have come across a couple of other great Meade deals I really cant go past. I should point out that my main interest at present is scoping the moon and other planets, comets when available, and a few of the more lively and beautiful star clusters.
Ok, so here's the gist, I can get a Meade TeleStar DS-2130AT with H25mm, H12.5mm and SR4mm and a 3X Barlow lens plus the basic Autostar system, I like the 5" aperture but this unit has the standard rack and pinion focuser (as do all these options) with .965” and 2” eyepiece holders. I know the 1.25" are the go now, how much worse are the .965's, how much smaller is the FOV?
Alternately I can get a DS-114ATE, pretty much the same accessories package, still with .965" eyepieces, but comes with the bonus electronic eyepiece - the simple RCA video output type but I can see the fun in that, would the 114mm aperture grab enough light to make the video outpout worthwhile?
Or ..... :-) ..... I can get the DS-2114ATSA "short tube" version but it does have 1.25" eyepieces in 25mm and 9mm and a 2x Barlow.
I have a couple of options as well for some 60 to 90mm Meade refractors also with Autostar guidance. I have read that a reasonable refractor will do as good a job of showing planets, if not better than, any reflector for the same or similar price. I wonder how happy I would be with the smaller aperture.
These are all going to cost me between Oz$280 and $350 roughly sent to my local post office. For this price I think I could make do very nicely until such time as I can save somewhere between 1 to 2 grand maybe for a fairly pleasant, large bore Dobson setup.
So .. open to discussion, please feel free to tear my ideas apart, or perhaps even affirm that my ideas aren't too far off line for a newbie.
PS: I do have a set of binocs already, they're only Tasco but they are 8-24x50 variables and I do have a lot of fun with them.
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