Star Gazing

[stiffdogg06]

Hey Guys! How is everyone doing!?

Well, being in love with the stars and anything dealing with the universe.

I am in the hunt for a nice telescope. My top price would prolly be $400-$550. Give or take a few dollars.

So if any of you pros out there that know a lot let me know where and what advantages the telescope has. Some sample pictures from that telescope would be sweet too!


Thanks guys!


- Andy

[bdaly84]

I am not a pro by an means, but I have recently gotten into amatuer astronomy myself. I bought a Celestron 114 nexstar. Its a 1000mm Focal, and 114 aperature. It does a very nice job for a beginner scope. I paid around 150 from BJ's actually. It came with the full tri-pod, sky align motorized drive, two ep's 25mm and 10mm, and finder scope.

I have since then bought better ep's, filters, and collimation tool. The sky-align feature is very nice for beginners. If your not familar with the motorized driven scopes, they are battery operated and have small on board sky navigation system. My son and I love it. We have seen 3 of Saturns moons, Jupiter and two of its moons, Pleaides, Orion's Nebula Trapizum, and of course the moon in great detail, and other galaxies/nebulas. Its a great hobby to get into,expensive, but what hobby isnt.

Check out telescopes.com and cloudynights.com

For the money you are looking to spend, from what I gather, get a good scope with big aperature, but the ep's make the difference. When I bought the better ep's, huge difference.

[stiffdogg06]

Whats a pretty good EP #?

[jfelbab]

Here is a moon shot through my scope.


Look to see if there is a local Astronomy club in your area. They will speed your entry into the hobby and often have swap meets where you can buy a nice scope for a good price.

[stiffdogg06]

Originally Posted by jfelbab

Look to see if there is a local Astronomy club in your area. They will speed your entry into the hobby and often have swap meets where you can buy a nice scope for a good price.

Well the problem with that is that I don't know what is good or not at this point.

[jfelbab]

If there is a club in your area they will help you to know what is good or not. Also You might pick up a subscription to Astronomy Magazine.
Astronomy.com

Buying a telescope
Astronomy.com - Buying a telescope

[BAKER]

Don't know of any good telescopes, but my younger brother is the astronomy tech at St. Marys University, and the only Canadian in history to discover 3 supernovas. Google David Lane and he may give you some good info, plus his web site has a lot of interesting stuff on it.

[beachcities]

I don't know much about astronemy, but that new Toyota Sequoia commercial where they are out under the stars is pretty cool.