Quote:
Originally Posted by Rebelsound
Hey everyone,
My girlfriend is interested in amateur astronomy and has done some courses on astronomy through the observatory in Sydney. We spend alot of time in Illford and I think there is an astronomical society she wants to join out that way. I want to get her a telescope for christmas but have no idea what to buy. I have a budget of about $2500. I know nothing of brand, types, uses for gazing etc. Am I better letting her pick the telescope? Or can you guys help me find a good telescope for Said price so it can be a surprise.
Thanks in advance.
Scott
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Hi Scott, welcome to the forum
.
The best advice that any of us can offer initially is for you to contact a local group and go along to one of their viewing nights, or meetings.
Buying a telescope is not difficult - the choice is huge. Buying the
right one for you, or someone you know,
that's the difficulty. You have a budget that allows a great deal of choice. You need to decide what sort of use it will be put to. Just visual observing; astrophotography; planetary; deep-sky objects (galaxies, nebulae, globular or open clusters, etc), or solar.
Talk to people who have been through all of this before and get to look through the different models and types of 'scopes. Refractor or reflector? Focal length and aperture? Eyepieces, finder scopes? Equatorial, alt/az, or Dobsonian mount? Manual or computer-controlled?
A typical starting point for many is either a 60-100 mm refractor on an alt/az mount, or a 6"-8" Dobsonian reflector. That will leave you a lot of change from $2500! That being said, just ask lots of questions - here, the astro groups, the retailers. This is a very good place to start, but there's is no substitute for looking through the real thing first.
Good luck - particularly if your girlfriend gets aperture fever, or some other astro-bug!
Cheers
John