[kev (Kev)]

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster.

Many many years ago, I won a telescope in a school competition. It was more like a magnifying glass than anything. Was useful for seeing close ups of ants on the power pole out the front than anything else.

I've always been fascinated with Space, The Moon, Life on another planets etc and always wanted to buy a Telescope that I can view things other than Ants crawling up the power pole.

I'll outline the list of things I want to "achieve" with a telescope / budget and what equipment I already have.


Budget: $1000 & Under

What I want to view: Moon, Some planets, stars / galaxies etc.
I would also like to the occasional astro photograph, but not on a serious side (I know I could get sucked in, but I think I've got a fairly strong will at this stage haha).

Transport: I have lots of "dark" areas I can drive to no problems. I live about 1hr from the beach, big mountain range, and huge flat areas. I drive a Subaru Hatchback, so boot space isn't really an issue.

As for my camera, I have a Nikon D80 as well as a Sony Cybershot point & shoot.

From what others have told me and from what I've read on this forum, a Dobsonian is a good start. Someone else suggested a Cassegrain scope of some description. I looked at the OzScopes page, and pricing starts around $359, where as the Dobsonian starts at around $100


I live in Eastern Victoria, roughly 2hrs drive from Melbourne, which is where I would travel to buy (as I frequent Melbourne quite a bit).


Any suggestions would be fantastic.

Kev