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).
My 2 cents worth....Start with an 8" dob. You'll get great views of all you mention and will have to learn the sky in order to know where to look. You could do some prime focus photography of the moon through the eyepiece with your cydershot camera and a $70 bracket (or even hand held).It's reasonably portable and can be lifted and moved by one person. A Supercheap Auto hand trolley can help here too.I think many think they can dabble in astrophotography without a great investment - money and time. Beyond simple point and shoot photos I don't think that's true. The photography road is the possible road to madness particularly for the beginner. I think we tend to want to run before we've learnt to walk. I have a room full of gizmos to aid that aspect of the hobby but still struggle to polar align properly!The dob will give you hours of pleasure and terrific views for a modest investment and even if you were to invest in serious photography set up later this would still find a home. There's never any problem selling them secondhand either if you decided to do that.The money you save could be invested in a decent eyepiece because these signifcantly improve your viewing.Start small. Join an astro club to take advantage of what others can show you because astronomers need deep pockets but long arms as well!good luckniko
I've since found out that one of my friends from work has a 8in Dob and a refractor so I'm going to head around after work tomorrow night for a look see.
Our local astro club meets irregularly, so I'll find out when I can go see their equipment and have a chat.
kev.
Thats great that you can have a look through an 8" Dob, its a good one to start off with.
Yopu could get a 10" for under $1000 too, but they are quite a bit bigger.
Enjoy!!
Hi Ken and welcome. Couldn't agree more with Liz and Nick. 8-10" dob would be a great scope and would do all that you're asking for. But you are doing the most important thing - looking through someone else's scope. I think this is essential for getting a realistic idea of what to expect.
If you travel to Melbourne regularly, Bintel would be a great place to look at for your scope and their own branded GSO dobs are very good value for money and have very good optics. And really I'd go 10" if you can afford it. They're pretty easy to move and you'll gather more light than an 8". Mind you an 8" scope is no slouch.
Hope you have fun with the scope and this forum.
Oh, and get a telrad with the scope. Makes a big difference when you're trying to find things. A very good accessory.
I had a look at the 8" dob last night & was impressed at what I saw through it.
The budget allows for a 10" dob and a telrad as paddy suggested. Though I'll wait on purchasing scope & add ons until I speak to the astronomy group first to see what they have etc
I had a chat with a couple of members of the local astronomy club and they were very helpful with questions etc that I had for them.
I went and visited BinTel in Camberwell (Vic) and ended up purchasing an 8" Dob, which came with a 9mm, 15mm and 26mm eye piece and I also purchased a laser collimator. I was going to purchase the 10" but it would have been a bit tricky to fit in the car comfortably I think.
Had nothing but overcast evenings since I purchased it and today was quite good outside, a breeze enough to get rid of the haze from the power stations, so I sat the Dob out in the yard to adjust to temperatures then went out to see what I could see from my back yard.
The moon was just setting for the night, so it made it hard to view because of houses, but Jupiter was bright in the sky, so I set out to find it and sure enough, it could be seen quite well, along with it's moons. A quick phone call to the folks and they were out to have a look too.
Mum thought I was playing some sort of practical joke on her and she was looking into a camera view finder that had an image of Jupiter.
Going up to one of the nearby mountains next weekend with some other friends who have telescopes to have a good look around the universe. Also depending on how tired I am when I finish work tonight, I might have another look through it at some other objects.
kev.
