good telescope?!
- Thread starter wesgt
- Start date
gv1.3
Admin
dont yawn when I say this but for the moon, a good lens on a camera or a good pair of binoculars are surprisingly good! You will find lots of pictures on amateur astronomy websites with people taking snaps of the moon using really cheap old camera lenses they purchased for half nothing on ebay.
My father has a big telescope but never really used it. I tried using it before but it was a pain in the arse to setup. The moon did look pretty cool through it though.
A friend of mine is mad in to astronomy. He is currently storing a very large telescope at my brothers house, actually I will send him the link to this thread, he might come on and give you some advice.
My father has a big telescope but never really used it. I tried using it before but it was a pain in the arse to setup. The moon did look pretty cool through it though.
A friend of mine is mad in to astronomy. He is currently storing a very large telescope at my brothers house, actually I will send him the link to this thread, he might come on and give you some advice.
New lady neighbour move in across the street ?? haha
corofin12345
Member +
^^^he will be looking for moons alright. cheeky ones..lol
yeh that would be great thanks
i told my girlfriend before i opened this thread that there'd be comments like that :haha:
edit: somethin like this maybe http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/hobbies/1523634
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not good so lol
Hey, I would definitely recommend giving it a try, it’s a very rewarding hobby but be warned it is something that takes practise to really get into
A very good local resource is http://www.irishastronomy.org . It is the Irish site for all things astronomy, it has a forum very similar to this with a lot of enthusiasts who are happy to help. Another much larger site is http://www.cloudynights.com , mostly US based but has a lot of international users. As im sure you have from many car forums there is an amazing amount of information to be learned if you read through them.
As with many things the skies the limit as to what you can spend but i will highly recommend starting off not to spend large amounts as the astronomy sites are full of people selling telescopes for half the price they bought them for a year before but only used it 3 times ETC. and if buying something because of this reason I would recommend buying used from someone, some great gear for sale for very little cash.
As suggested and although may seem a little boring but is excellent advise to start off is a good pairs of binoculars. You will be able to see plenty to get you started along with a sky map. And if you do get more into it and then buy a telescope you will still use the binoculars are part of nightly viewing so they will never go to waste.
A telescope is a light bucket, the larger the diameter the more light it will take in. This is especially useful for fainter deep space objects like nebulas. Its not 100% accurate but a general saying is "aperture rules" so the larger the diameter of the scope the better. So if you did stretch to get a 6-8" diameter scope it would serve you years before you would ever out advance it and see all you can with it (if you ever do)
What is even more important though then the size of the scope is the seeing conditions. Having dark skies with little light pollution will show you more with a small scope then almost any large scope in light polluted areas. If heavy clouds then no scope is going to show you anything.
The irishastronomy.org lads regularly holds "meets" so to speak and there is no problem going up and joining in. The lads have no problems letting you look through their equipment and it will give you first hand experience looking through the telescopes and see what you think yourself, many events are completely community out-reach where everyone is just someone from the community coming along to look through the scopes and enjoy the events. There is a section on the forum detailing them.
One thing though is manage the expectations, the moon is great to look at and you can see it all most as good as the photos you awe at on the sites but after that things become a lot harder. You will see very little colour unless you have a large scope with really dark skies but objects are still great to look at, some amazing detail. They can also be hard to find (still not great at this myself) but if you want to shell out a few more hundred you can get a scope with a GOTO function that will automatically go to objects for you. As said they have little hand controllers like the Power FCs.
Definitely have a read through them sites, their completely free and loaded with information (there is a lot to take in lol). Cloudynights has great sections where people put up the photos they take which are great to look at. I wont even mention Astrophotography here as it’s a subject in its own.
Any questions please ask away here or on the irishastronomy (I have same user on both paddyman), over there though you will have people a 1000 times more experienced then I am to answer.
I would definitely recommend giving it a good try/research though, very good fun!.
Edit:
One important thing i will mention is that the scope is really only half the optical train so to speak. The light needs to get to your eye through the eyepeice. (i'll try keep it as simple as possible, more technical info is available for anyone who wants it).
On more advanced telescopes the eye pieces will have fixed sizes, like 4mm and anything up to about 45 mm. Each size will lead to a fixed magnification. In general the smaller numbers the higher magnification. The reason why is each telescope has a Focal length. So say for example the telescope has a Focal length of 1000mm. You devide the eyepiece size into 1000mm and that gives you how much magnification you have.
I.E 1000mm/25mm = 40X magnification which isnt all that big. If you want to get closer you would grab your 5mm eyepiece which will give you 1000mm/5mm = 200x magnification Etc.
So as well as the scope you will need a few eyepieces as well.
You can also get filters too which can block out light pollution a bit but let starlight through ETC. Same for the moon.
A very good local resource is http://www.irishastronomy.org . It is the Irish site for all things astronomy, it has a forum very similar to this with a lot of enthusiasts who are happy to help. Another much larger site is http://www.cloudynights.com , mostly US based but has a lot of international users. As im sure you have from many car forums there is an amazing amount of information to be learned if you read through them.
As with many things the skies the limit as to what you can spend but i will highly recommend starting off not to spend large amounts as the astronomy sites are full of people selling telescopes for half the price they bought them for a year before but only used it 3 times ETC. and if buying something because of this reason I would recommend buying used from someone, some great gear for sale for very little cash.
As suggested and although may seem a little boring but is excellent advise to start off is a good pairs of binoculars. You will be able to see plenty to get you started along with a sky map. And if you do get more into it and then buy a telescope you will still use the binoculars are part of nightly viewing so they will never go to waste.
A telescope is a light bucket, the larger the diameter the more light it will take in. This is especially useful for fainter deep space objects like nebulas. Its not 100% accurate but a general saying is "aperture rules" so the larger the diameter of the scope the better. So if you did stretch to get a 6-8" diameter scope it would serve you years before you would ever out advance it and see all you can with it (if you ever do)
What is even more important though then the size of the scope is the seeing conditions. Having dark skies with little light pollution will show you more with a small scope then almost any large scope in light polluted areas. If heavy clouds then no scope is going to show you anything
.The irishastronomy.org lads regularly holds "meets" so to speak and there is no problem going up and joining in. The lads have no problems letting you look through their equipment and it will give you first hand experience looking through the telescopes and see what you think yourself, many events are completely community out-reach where everyone is just someone from the community coming along to look through the scopes and enjoy the events. There is a section on the forum detailing them.
One thing though is manage the expectations, the moon is great to look at and you can see it all most as good as the photos you awe at on the sites but after that things become a lot harder. You will see very little colour unless you have a large scope with really dark skies but objects are still great to look at, some amazing detail. They can also be hard to find (still not great at this myself) but if you want to shell out a few more hundred you can get a scope with a GOTO function that will automatically go to objects for you. As said they have little hand controllers like the Power FCs
.Definitely have a read through them sites, their completely free and loaded with information (there is a lot to take in lol). Cloudynights has great sections where people put up the photos they take which are great to look at. I wont even mention Astrophotography here as it’s a subject in its own.
Any questions please ask away here or on the irishastronomy (I have same user on both paddyman), over there though you will have people a 1000 times more experienced then I am to answer
.I would definitely recommend giving it a good try/research though, very good fun!.
Edit:
One important thing i will mention is that the scope is really only half the optical train so to speak. The light needs to get to your eye through the eyepeice. (i'll try keep it as simple as possible, more technical info is available for anyone who wants it).
On more advanced telescopes the eye pieces will have fixed sizes, like 4mm and anything up to about 45 mm. Each size will lead to a fixed magnification. In general the smaller numbers the higher magnification. The reason why is each telescope has a Focal length. So say for example the telescope has a Focal length of 1000mm. You devide the eyepiece size into 1000mm and that gives you how much magnification you have.
I.E 1000mm/25mm = 40X magnification which isnt all that big. If you want to get closer you would grab your 5mm eyepiece which will give you 1000mm/5mm = 200x magnification Etc.
So as well as the scope you will need a few eyepieces as well.
You can also get filters too which can block out light pollution a bit but let starlight through ETC. Same for the moon.
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spuddy
Ulster Area Rep.
My girlfriend spent a small fortune on a computerised scope for me at Christmas there. I don't have a bloody clue what to do with it, it sounded so simple punch in your longtatude and latitude and tell it what ya wanna look at.
Problem is before it knows where things are you have to point it at a couple of stars it names and I don't know which stars they are cause I'm a noob! This is really annoying cause I always wanted a good powerful telescope and now I have one its sat upstairs doing nothing
Must join a club and get shown how to set it up.
Problem is before it knows where things are you have to point it at a couple of stars it names and I don't know which stars they are cause I'm a noob! This is really annoying cause I always wanted a good powerful telescope and now I have one its sat upstairs doing nothing
Must join a club and get shown how to set it up.
That was quick Paddy
Ha, seriously good fun. Who knew Ray was such a great cook
. @spuddy
Yea defo give it a go. This is kind of what im saying for people not to run out and spend a fortune at first. So many people have as it is something that seems facinating (and it is) but it takes a lot of practise. There is a learning curve that too many give up on and end up selling their scope for half the price they paid & only opened it once or twice.
I dont want that to happen to anyone.If you already have the scope spuddy its more reason to get cracking on it. What your doing as you rightly said is letting telescope know where it is, the time and where its pointing. Once this star sync is done it will track across the sky itself.
The point your stuck on is one that is thankfully not hard to over come. There are many sky atlas you can get that will show you where every star is. You can get electronic versions too. On my iphone i have a great app called pocket universe that uses the inbuilt GPS/tilt Etc of the phone so when you point it to the sky and it will show you whats there, you can also tell it the name of the star and press "where is" and it will put arrows on the screen showing left or right and as u move the phone it will direct you to were the star is.
You can also get specialized ones like the Meade MySky Plus. Its a little gun that you point into the sky and it shows you everything. http://www.meade.com/mysky/index.html
If you get the make/model i'll see if i can find a few guides for you.
Edit:
A lot of these computerized scopes can still be used in what we call ALT-AZ mode. You move it around yourself without using the computer, kind off like free hand. You can do things like point it at the moon and enjoy it that way until you get the knack of the GOTO on it.
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Hey, I would definitely recommend giving it a try, it’s a very rewarding hobby but be warned it is something that takes practise to really get into
A very good local resource is http://www.irishastronomy.org . It is the Irish site for all things astronomy, it has a forum very similar to this with a lot of enthusiasts who are happy to help. Another much larger site is http://www.cloudynights.com , mostly US based but has a lot of international users. As im sure you have from many car forums there is an amazing amount of information to be learned if you read through them.
As with many things the skies the limit as to what you can spend but i will highly recommend starting off not to spend large amounts as the astronomy sites are full of people selling telescopes for half the price they bought them for a year before but only used it 3 times ETC. and if buying something because of this reason I would recommend buying used from someone, some great gear for sale for very little cash.
As suggested and although may seem a little boring but is excellent advise to start off is a good pairs of binoculars. You will be able to see plenty to get you started along with a sky map. And if you do get more into it and then buy a telescope you will still use the binoculars are part of nightly viewing so they will never go to waste.
A telescope is a light bucket, the larger the diameter the more light it will take in. This is especially useful for fainter deep space objects like nebulas. Its not 100% accurate but a general saying is "aperture rules" so the larger the diameter of the scope the better. So if you did stretch to get a 6-8" diameter scope it would serve you years before you would ever out advance it and see all you can with it (if you ever do)
What is even more important though then the size of the scope is the seeing conditions. Having dark skies with little light pollution will show you more with a small scope then almost any large scope in light polluted areas. If heavy clouds then no scope is going to show you anything
The irishastronomy.org lads regularly holds "meets" so to speak and there is no problem going up and joining in. The lads have no problems letting you look through their equipment and it will give you first hand experience looking through the telescopes and see what you think yourself, many events are completely community out-reach where everyone is just someone from the community coming along to look through the scopes and enjoy the events. There is a section on the forum detailing them.
One thing though is manage the expectations, the moon is great to look at and you can see it all most as good as the photos you awe at on the sites but after that things become a lot harder. You will see very little colour unless you have a large scope with really dark skies but objects are still great to look at, some amazing detail. They can also be hard to find (still not great at this myself) but if you want to shell out a few more hundred you can get a scope with a GOTO function that will automatically go to objects for you. As said they have little hand controllers like the Power FCs
Definitely have a read through them sites, their completely free and loaded with information (there is a lot to take in lol). Cloudynights has great sections where people put up the photos they take which are great to look at. I wont even mention Astrophotography here as it’s a subject in its own.
Any questions please ask away here or on the irishastronomy (I have same user on both paddyman), over there though you will have people a 1000 times more experienced then I am to answer
I would definitely recommend giving it a good try/research though, very good fun!.
thanks a million, very good info there!
My girlfriend spent a small fortune on a computerised scope for me at Christmas there. I don't have a bloody clue what to do with it, it sounded so simple punch in your longtatude and latitude and tell it what ya wanna look at.
Problem is before it knows where things are you have to point it at a couple of stars it names and I don't know which stars they are cause I'm a noob! This is really annoying cause I always wanted a good powerful telescope and now I have one its sat upstairs doing nothing
Must join a club and get shown how to set it up.
or sell it.....to me :haha:
Hornswoggle
Fresh Recruit
Can't really add much more info than what Paddy has said above, but I'd recommend a Meade ETX-70. I picked one up cheap in Lidl last year and it's really easy to use. It has Autostar, which means, if you're too lazy to take out star charts like me, you just key in what you want to see and it adjusts and shows you automatically. Although it's only a small scope I've seen Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and moons, Andromeda etc clearly through it, and it's really easy to carry around with you. If you do want more viewing power however, there's loads of aftermarket bits you can buy to make it a better scope.Lidl usually sell these in the run up to christmas, here's more info on the scope
http://www.astronomyforbeginners.com/equipment/mygear.php
http://www.meade.com/manuals/TelescopeManuals/ETXtelescopes/ETX-60-70AT manual.pdf
http://www.astronomyforbeginners.com/equipment/mygear.php
http://www.meade.com/manuals/TelescopeManuals/ETXtelescopes/ETX-60-70AT manual.pdf
thanks, wiill check them out!