Trevor,
First of all,
and kudos for finding iceinspace and asking for people's advice before you buy. Many people much older than you just go out and make an impulse buy, so well done on waiting and learning a bit before you go out and spend a couple of thousand bucks on something.
All very good advice below, particularly Chris' comments. I am relatively new at this, and I can tell you that when you take a brand new massive $1500 12" scope home, you will want to go out the next day and start buying eyepieces. You'll get a couple of basic ones with your scope but will very quickly begin to want more, better ones. These will set you back at least $200 each. Plus a Barlow. So add at least $500 to whatever the scope costs.
My advice:
a. Read the advice on the net for beginning astronomers, if you haven't already.
Information for beginning astronomers is great (click on the various links on that page).
Buying your first telescope in Australia was helpful for me. You'll notice the same advice pop up again and again - don't buy a junk scope, join a club, buy binoculars first, etc. Much of which I'm about to reiterate.
1. Buy a
10" collapsible dob for around $800. I did this and I think the sweet spot for price/portability/aperture is in the 10". As soon as you go up to 12", you introduce serious portability issues (the 10" is challenging enough), and, to be honest with you, value for money issues. Then you can splash out on a few hundred bucks' worth of eyepieces with the money you've saved, as others have mentioned. You could even bargain with the store to swap the ordinary eyepieces that come with the scope for a single better eyepiece - I know someone who did this.
2. If you haven't already, go out with a club next new moon (in a couple of weeks) and observe using other people's telescopes. I am fairly sure everyone will be very excited to show you
the latest comet that's coming past and will be getting pretty bright by new moon.
3. I know you want a scope now, but WAIT if you can. Go to a club observing session. Buy a good pair of 8x40 or 7x50 binoculars - a good brand like Nikon, not some bargain brand - I use my binoculars EVERY TIME I observe. You will be AMAZED at what you can see with a good pair of binos. You gotta have binoculars anyway, in my opinion, so while you're continuing your research into the scope, buy a quality pair of binos for $300 or more and start observing! (
These look amazing. I wish I had them! Don't forget York have a discount for iceinspace members, click on the ad on the side of any IIS page.)
4. Since you were planning to spend a couple of grand, and are now realising that you might only need to spend $800 on the scope itself, go and buy a basic star map book, a red light torch, buy a little book on deep sky objects like I did, get a planisphere, and start learning the sky!
5. Get this: "
Night-sky objects for Southern Hemisphere observers". I can't remember how I found it (anyone know if it's been posted on IIS before?) but it's fabulous. Download it and enjoy. Free.
6. Download
Stellarium and
Skyglobe and some other planetarium software. Free. Stellarium is amazing.
7. Get the latest astro magazine like Australian Sky and Telescope.
Total cost: $800 for scope, $300 for binos, $100 books and torch = $1200. More for additional eyepieces which you shall surely want. I have looked through 12" scopes and compared with my 10" view - I'm sure there's a significant difference (the theory says that the 12" has 44% more light-collecting ability) but as a beginner, I couldn't tell, and probably will happily enjoy looking at stuff for at least the next 12 months without lusting after a bigger scope.
By the way, you say your parents will always be there to help you carry the scope, but surely there will be times when you'll want to move it yourself! I can barely move the fully constructed 10" myself, and I'm not a small guy!
You've done the right thing by asking the question here on iceinspace - let us know what you choose to do with the advice, buddy!
- darkskybondi
till now.
