buying my first real scope

[kingkong01]

hi all i am thinking about buying my first scope soon but have a kind of limited budget am am thinking of geting a
Bushnell NorthStar 78 8850 or seben 1000-114 reflector any advice on these would be greatly welcomed

[Suzy]

Bump-ety-bump. No one's responded yet :shrug:.

Wish I could help you :question:, but I don't know much about these scopes. Sure you don't want to buy a dob? :D I can help you there ;):lol:

James, what is your budget by the way? And are you planning on staying visual for a while, or do you plan on treading to the dark side of astrophotography?

[Esseth]

I have heard the Bushnell NorthStar 78 8850 is a decent little scope, however like Suzy said a 6' dob may be a much better buy (bang for buck wise).

What exactly are you looking for regarding your first scope, the more details you give the more we can assist :D

[mental4astro]

Hi there,

First, sorry to say, but stay away from the Seben scope. These reflectors are actually only 500mm in focal length and have a barlow lens stuffed down into the focuser tube to extend it to 1000mm. The primary mirror is also spherical in shape, not parobolic, meaning that the image quality is poor, the stuffed-in-barlow helps to correct the anomalies of a spherical mirror, but these barlows are of questionable quality. The mount too is very poor, and will only serve to frustrate and disappoint, and you will end up not using the thing.

The little Bushnell mak is the better one of the two. Though it too is in reality a very cheap scope, it does tend to perform better. Just don't expect too much. Its long focal length will help with viewing the planets, but the image of deep sky objects will tend to be a little dim as it is difficult to get the magnification down, really down with this focal ratio. You don't need a huge amount of magnification to see these objects.

Before you buy anything I suggest two things. First, how much do you want to spend? Second, what do you want to do with the scope? By that I mean visual, photo or a bit of both, because this will greatly affect what you will be able to get. Even with visual, mainly deep sky objects or planetary? There is no one size fits all- remember my earlier remark with the mak above.

Visual is by far the least complicated and means you can get a bigger scope (in astro, bigger is better, nearly always).

Photo is a giant sinkhole for money, with a good mount costing more than double that of the telescope itself (the mount is everything with photography, meaning that the scope will need to be smaller to accomodate your buget). Sure, you can do photography with a simple setup, but don't expect the picture quality in the photo forum here.

You would be doing yourself a big favour if you are able to get to a star party, either organised by an astro club, or one through the various IIS members dotted throughout Oz. Check out the Star Parties forum and the Our Community heading on the left margin for club listings.

At any one of these gatherings you will see a variety of scopes, and a range of $ involved. Some modest, some expensive, large and small. This will give you an idea of what is available, how they perform, how simple or complicated they are to handle, how quick they are to setup and what accessories can be got to enhance the experience. It doesn't matter if you don't have a scope, just getting there tells everyone that you are keen! You may only have binoculars, great! I love mine & always use it, even when I've got my big scope up too- sometimes smaller is better too!

Mental.

[kingkong01]

thanks for the replys. as said by suzy i have been looking at some dobs from 6''-10'' compared to the ones i have stated and thay seem to give more aperture compared to the one listed and are in my price range (which is around 300-450) the more i read about them it seems better if i get one of these for my first scope. and i do plan on staying with visual for a while. nad thanks to mental4astro for pointing out the pros and cons with the scopes i listed. so i think i might go for a dob :thanx:eveyone for the help

[Esseth]

The other thing is that after a year or so with the Dob, you will have nutted out exactly where you want to go and what you need your scope to do.

Good luck :D

[kingkong01]

thanks every one for the help just 1 more question is a 10'' dob suited for a newbie or for the more experienced or would i be better of with a 8'' or 6'' :thanx:

[gdonnellon]

I have recently bought a 10" dob (collapasble) and its a lot bigger than I expected. Cannot get the base into the boot of my car once fully assembled. Its heavy too. Much harder to carry it around than I expected. Having said that I am impressed with the extra resolution you get as opposed to a 6".