Something small but impressive

[Charla]

Hi stargazers,

I'm selling my 8" Dob because it's just too big for my little house, and since we've had kids I'm hardly awake past 9pm!

But I just can't bring myself to give up on the stars... so I was wondering if anyone could give me some recommendations for either a smaller scope or some binoculars which would give good moon and planetary viewing.

Can a pair of binos be mounted on a regular (ie camera) tripod? Are there adapters for mounting them maybe?

We're selling the Dob for $400, so I wouldn't want to spend too much more than that.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate your advice.

: )

[dannat (Daniel)]

binoculars will not give good planetary viewing, though will give very good moon & sky viewing.
they can be mounted on a regular camera tripod with a metal adapter, available for between $20-80 depending on brand / quality.
As long as your tripod can hold the weight and has a decent head it can hold binos fine..it can also hold small scopes.
if you want to look at the planets anything small is going to be worse view than the dob..but you might think about a folded cassegrain design..some of the 90mm or 100mm sct's or maks are small enough for a sturdy/decent tripod
if you can forego the planret views some quality waterproof 10x50 or 15x70 will give nice sky views on the tripod..the 15x70 will be more useful for chasing down dso's

[citivolus (Ric)]

As glenc will attest, a good reclining lawn chair can also be an option for binocular viewing.

My 15x70's will do a good job on a lot of objects, including Jupiter & its moons, but of course won't go further than that. If you want cheap / compact, I would second the idea of a small Maksutov on an alt-az or even camera tripod. The video camera style tripods with the arm for aiming are very useful in this case, if not necessarily extremely steady.

I used to have a 90mm Maksutov which made a good grab'n go in a compact size.

Regards,
Eric