Quote:
Originally Posted by bmitchell82
Well, all i can say is for that price of 1000 dollars, ide go a 10" dobsonian, theres been a heap on the forums lately for 500 dollars. and considering your running with pure Visual, you want aperature, and also considering you want to look at DSO's the bigger the better.
the difference between the size will be brightness and details. clarity should be with any scope.
Things to get Irrispective of scope size:-
a good set of hex keys
a good phillips and flat screwdriver
a laser collimator (youll have to do some mods to anything cheaper than about 100-150 bucks, but they are easy to do, just take a few momoents of your time)
a cheschire eye piece.
go with the standard eye pieces for a start, then your next purchase should be a good quality 2x barlow, followed by a 20mm eye piece, 40mm eye piece and then a 10mm eye piece.
and then get rid of all the standard ones.
If your thinking about attaching a camera to your telescope. everything changes dramatically!  let me know if you are going down that path. |
40, 20, 10 with 2x Barlow only gains you a 5 as the 20 & 10 are doubled up. Also a 40 with 2x Barlow has far too long an eye relief unless you get a 2x Powermate.
You can collimate by eye without the laser and yes the cheap ones are out of collimation themselves defeating the purpose. Search the web for collimating a Newtonian and you will find plenty of resources.
If you can afford it go the 8" over the 6" for almost twice the light gathering capacity. The 6" f8 and 8" f6 are almost the same size except for tube diameter. The 10" f5 has a larger tube again but is still manageable. After a bumpy road trip you will need to collimate. Also the mirror will shift inside it's cell and a bit of PVC tape around the clips holding the mirror will stop it rotating and possibly scratching the surface. Note the mirror clips must not be over tightened to avoid optical deformation.
Dampness and dew is more of a problem on closed systems where moisture may get in but has trouble escaping. An open tube Newtonian is fine in damp conditions and will not rust as most of the components are alluminium or glass. A dew heater is available for the secondary mirror and for eyepieces.
A set of tools and torch, both red and white is a good idea.