What telescope to buy

[Venus88 (Amy)]

Hi. I'm from adelaide and really want to buy a telescope. I only really want to spend up to $500. I'm looking for something easy to use. Can anyone recommend a few. Also what sort of things will i see see it. Would love to check out some stars and planets. Cheers

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Hi Amy, the first thing to do would be to check out any local clubs and go to a couple of viewing nights, I am sure someone from Adelaide will chime in here and could point you in the direction of some clubs or observing groups. People are generally nearly tripping over each other to help out newcomers.

Regards what scope to buy, for around the $500 mark the normal advice runs to "Buy a secondhand Dobsonian" and I would agree with it. They do not take very long to master setting up and adjusting (Collimation to ensure correct alignment of the mirrors is occasionally required and is probably the trickiest part about them) They are dead easy to use and can give great views and they provide great bang for your bucks, particularly secondhand. Around the 8 inch mark is a pretty good compromise it seems. You would expect to be able to get good views of Jupiter and Saturn, views of Mars (Never really my favourite target) and great views of a real variety of nebulae and stars/star clusters with a good 8" dob and a handful of eyepieces.

A word of warning, don't expect to see much colour through a telescope, the planets yes, some lovely stars and maybe the Orion Nebula (Not visible just now) but most nebula are shades of grey by eye, the human eye is just not sensitive enough for it.

If you keep an eye on the trader section here and on other forums, Dobs do come up secondhand with some regularity.

Again, the first thing would be to try to catch up with some local groups to have a look through equipment that might fall in your budget. Without any idea what your experience is, some people go "WOW" and are instantly hooked like me, some people are just sort of interested and some people really do end up with a "Meh" outcome. It is good to find out which camp you are in before spending money.

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

I have one of these
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/eliza...ope/1073305823
and I see plenty with it. You could offer them a bit less (they are almost that new) and see if you like it.

EDIT: When you say "easy to use", that can mean different things to different people. For me a dobsonian is easy to use, because I drop it on the ground, and away I go, looking for stuff with the help of star charts, and an observing plan. For others, easy means not having to hunt around, that is, to use some sort of GOTO facility. However, I'm a member of a few different forums, and have some real life experience with new scope owners, and GOTO systems cause there fair share of headaches. Just thought I would add that.

[PSALM19.1 (Shaun)]

Hi Amy,

I would certainly recommend an 8" Dobsonian - now it will take a bit of practice to get used to it,but any scope does! For $500 you may be able to get yourself a new one rather than second hand. I started with a very small 76mm scope and learned my way around the sky, but the views through an 8"scope are quite something and worth the effort! One word though, these scopes are relatively heavy and you need to be able to physically handle moving it...enjoy, lots of fun ahead for you!

Shaun

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Hi Amy,

I suggest you go to one of the ASSA public nights. There is one in a couple of weeks at The Heights, you would be able to look at a variety of telescopes there.

Michael.