DaveR
31-12-2005, 09:09 PM
I found this site a few weeks ago and I really like the style & tone - nicely antipodean rather than US\Euro. I probably would have stayed a reader rather than join but I lashed out and bought a scope and wanted to tell someone!
I was at ****Smith Electronics with my wife looking for an MP3 player and saw a stack of Celestron Nextstar 80 GT - go to , 80 mm alt/az - for $499. Went home and checked the web site and saw it listed for $399. My wife said 'You have been wanting a telescope for a while - why dont you buy one?' Some wives are very good!
Anyway, I have been going through the long running process of wanting to buy a scope but not having the $$$s to buy anything I desired and wont until the teenagers leave the house. But for less than $400 for a scope that is portable and go to and will let me learn my way round the sky seemed pretty good. I was not expecting good optics.
I bought the scope, assembled it in 10 minutes. Took 20 mins to align (mostly looking up star names to do 2 star align) and then spent 1-2 hours with son looking at Orion - seemed good -, Mars - could see it was round orange and had some marks? and Saturn where we could make out it had rings and moon but no other detail. Then clouds.:drink:
Images were not as good as I remember from a Unitron 3 inch in the 70s but that is a long time ago and my eyes worked better. GO TO worked a treat and tracking kept Orion centred for 10-15 minutes.
Overall happy with the buy and day dreaming of something nice on a Losmandy G8.
Dave from Perth.
I was at ****Smith Electronics with my wife looking for an MP3 player and saw a stack of Celestron Nextstar 80 GT - go to , 80 mm alt/az - for $499. Went home and checked the web site and saw it listed for $399. My wife said 'You have been wanting a telescope for a while - why dont you buy one?' Some wives are very good!
Anyway, I have been going through the long running process of wanting to buy a scope but not having the $$$s to buy anything I desired and wont until the teenagers leave the house. But for less than $400 for a scope that is portable and go to and will let me learn my way round the sky seemed pretty good. I was not expecting good optics.
I bought the scope, assembled it in 10 minutes. Took 20 mins to align (mostly looking up star names to do 2 star align) and then spent 1-2 hours with son looking at Orion - seemed good -, Mars - could see it was round orange and had some marks? and Saturn where we could make out it had rings and moon but no other detail. Then clouds.:drink:
Images were not as good as I remember from a Unitron 3 inch in the 70s but that is a long time ago and my eyes worked better. GO TO worked a treat and tracking kept Orion centred for 10-15 minutes.
Overall happy with the buy and day dreaming of something nice on a Losmandy G8.
Dave from Perth.