I live in miami florida, the skys are muggy ..

[rigotech]

what scope should i get?

I have never studied astronomy but i watch alot of history and science channel.

decided to dive into Near Earth Object hunting.

what now ..

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

I'd recommend that you contact and visit a local Astronomy Club in the Miami/Southern Florida Area.

It will immediately introduce you to people near you who share your interests and will give you a chance to see first hand some of the gear that people may recommend. Best of all, most astronomers are a generous lot and will freely share their experiences (good and bad) with anyone who asks. This will speed you along the learning curve and hopefully help you miss a few pitfalls.

The other thing I would recommend is that you join and post a similar comment on Cloudy Nights.

While I love IIS and all of the wonderful people who post here (I was number 50 to join)...

I suspect that you are more likely to get more applicable advice (read more local) on that USA based website than this Australia/New Zealand centered site.

Good luck and enjoy the warmth of Miami while those of us further North prepare to hibernate for the winter.

Clear Dark Skies to you!

[Ian Robinson]

Don't bother with a big telescope .... get a good equatorial mount with an autoguider interface and a secondhand 300mm f2.8 lens to go onto your camera , a TC80n3 timer cable (what ever is the equiv for your camera), and maybe a small refractor to be your guidescope.

You don't need to spend thousands on the 300mm f2.8 , ie I picked up a Tamron Adapt2all LD SP 300mm f2.8 for under $1000 on Ebay.
It has a very useful and capable apeture of 107mm (just over 4 inches) and quite a wide and distortion free field on the 40D I'm using.

The mount , a Celestron CG5-AST will do the trick with such a light setup.

You'll be more likely to pick up NEOs in widefield imaging patrols IMO.

[rigotech]

Originally Posted by Ian Robinson

Don't bother with a big telescope .... get a good equatorial mount with an autoguider interface and a secondhand 300mm f2.8 lens to go onto your camera , a TC80n3 timer cable (what ever is the equiv for your camera), and maybe a small refractor to be your guidescope.

You don't need to spend thousands on the 300mm f2.8 , ie I picked up a Tamron Adapt2all LD SP 300mm f2.8 for under $1000 on Ebay.
It has a very useful and capable apeture of 107mm (just over 4 inches) and quite a wide and distortion free field on the 40D I'm using.

The mount , a Celestron CG5-AST will do the trick with such a light setup.

You'll be more likely to pick up NEOs in widefield imaging patrols IMO.

I have the sudden urge to scan the night sky for NEO's and I have been wanting to do this for years.

I know linux and windows, currently using stellerium, wanted a setup i can control from my laptop and record real time and take captures out of that if i wanted later.

post up what i get to the web help the community as well as research.
..

I was going to get a celestron or Orion but i was looking at a 15k ..sheesh.. im broke..