this is my very first scope and I am complete new to anything that has to do with astronomy > what can anyone tell me about this scope did I buy a descent one? I paid 40 dollars for it ....how do I use it? are a eyepieces interchangeable with other telescopes ANY help is more than welcome! I am in LOs Angeles is there any chance of me seeing any good stuff ?
For $40 I think you did ok. Not sure what the optics are like on it but for the money you paid I really dont think you could go wrong, even if it only gives you an appetite for bigger and better, and believe me it will.
The eye pieces will be interchangeable however they wont be good quality. If you take the scope away from town out into the dark skies you'll certainly see a lot more with it. It is more than i started out with so you should certainly see enough to get you hooked. Have you joined a local astronomy group. That would be the first thing to do.
looks like a good buy' You can use it anywhere anytime to look at the moon or the planets (Saturn is rising early in the eveniing now) or you can take a drive out away from city lights and use it under a dark sky to look a bit deeper into space (when the moon isn't up that is)
Wouldn't hurt you to drag it along to one of the local astro society nights, there you can get an expert to check the alignment of the mirrors because good alignment will mean much better views.
It took me over one year to find the best setup for it, considering its poor tripod, slack gearing, and other poorly designed elements. Eventuraly I turned the equatorial tripod in a Alt/azimuth setup, using a wixey angle guage for alt and a compass for azimuth. I downloaded astrohelper for my nightly obsevations (for a printout of Alt/Az 4 minute intervals)
I'm planing to create webpages for all the mods on my tasco, to share, in months to come. As I modified my tasco beyond what I thought, was even possible, because it was so cheap and forgiving of course.
It can be a great scope when its deck out, and perminantly collimated.
(Ps) You can easerly hot glue gun in your finderscope after collimation, or tighten the tripod. I perminatly collimated the Secondary mirror and succured the primary mirror as both where quite loose. Now only the primary needs to be changed.
Last edited by JASON LIGHTCAN; 25-05-2008 at 02:20 PM.
Reason: a mixup of primary and secondary
Johhny 
hope u have fun with your scope 
