Have you ever seen the stars?

420neverforget · Jan 1, 2013

Have you ever seen the stars...on weed?

I'm thinking of buying this telescope with a 3x barlow for my first telescope.

Anyone into astronomy?

Ratio · Jan 1, 2013

Love astronomy. Esp when its warm out lol. Havent had a good stare at the stars because its been so bitterly cold where I'm at. Took an Astro class a year ago and I was way more into it than I thought. Got to see the Space Station pass right over my house last summer that was pretty cool. Got to see Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Mars last summer too. There was a week or two when they were all super high and bright in the sky at certain times.

MysteryRoach69 · Jan 1, 2013

Hell yeah took an astro course in college. Been into it the last 5 years. Seen all the planets visible by the naked eye (mercury, venus, Earth obviously, mars, jupiter, saturn and uranus(super faint)) also seen jupiter 4 largest moons through a telescope. The moon is awesome through a telescope. You can sometimes seen the barely lit rim of craters in the dark area, it's neat

Carl Weathers · Jan 1, 2013

I've always wanted to.. But I have a habit of getting into a hobby only for the novelty to wear off after a short time. While this is fine for many things, astronomy is an expensive novelty. Furthermore, I live in the middle of a city and would have to drive out of the light pollution to see anything at all.

May I copy and paste a tip guide I read not long ago on beginner telescopes (might be handy if you're buying):

The key thing to remember with telescopes is that other things being equal, aperture wins out, because you will be able to see more objects and more details. Other things are not always equal, naturally, but that's the background of the various disputes between amateur astronomers about which kind of scope is best. And keep in mind that while a bigger scope can show you more, the best telescope is the one that you'll actually haul out and use. Overbuying has not been my problem, dang it all, but it has been known to happen. Overall, I'd say a six-inch aperture should be the starting point, although opinions vary on that, too.

You've basically got three kinds of scopes to consider: refractors, reflectors, and folded-path. The refractors are the classic lens-in-the-front types. They can provide very nice views, especially of the planets and other brighter objects. Many planetary observers swear by them. But per inch of aperture, they're the most expensive, especially since for good views you have to spring for high-end optics to keep from having rainbow fringes around everything. I can't recommend a refractor for a first scope, for these reasons. That's especially true since a lot of the refractors you see for sale out there are of the cheap/nearly worthless variety - a casual buyer would be appalled at the price tag for a decent one. No large refractors have been built for astronomical research since well before World War II.

Reflectors are variations on Isaac Newton's design, which was: open tube at the top, mirror at the bottom, and you look through the eyepiece in the side, after the light reflects back off an angled secondary mirror. All modern large-aperture research telescopes are some variety of reflector. They provide the most aperture per dollar, especially with a simple "Dobsonian" mount (more on mounts in a minute). They do have to be aligned (collimated) when you first get them, and every so often afterwards, to make sure the mirrors are all working together. A badly collimated reflector will provide ugly views indeed, but it's at least easy to fix. And if the primary mirror is of poor quality, you're also in trouble, but the average these days is actually quite good.

Finally, the folded-path (catadioptric) types (Schmidt-Cassegrain
and Maksutov designs, mostly) are a hybrid. There's a mirror in the back, but also a corrector lens plate covering the front. The light path ends up coming out the back of the tube, through a hole in the primary mirror. Like refractors, these basically never have to be aligned, but they're fairly expensive (although nowhere near as bad as refractors when you start going up in size). And their views are pretty good, although purists argue about how they compare to a reflector of equal size. (Refractor owners would probably win that argument, but they have to drop out at about the five or six-inch mark, when the other two telescope designs are just getting started). One nice thing about a scope of this kind is that it's more compact, making it an easier design to mount.

And that brings up the next topic: what you do mount one of these fine optical tubes on, so you can use them to actually look at things? An equatorial or a fork mount will let you follow the motion of the objects in the sky easily, especially with a motor drive - the Earth's rotation is always sweeping things out of your view, otherwise. A decent mount of this kind will definitely add to your costs, though. The "Dobsonian" mount is a favorite of reflector owners, since it's quite simple and allows you to put more of your money into the optics. You do have to manually grab the telescope tube and move it, though, which takes some practice (and sometimes some home-brew messing around with the mount). Some people don't mind this, others are driven nuts by it. You can put a motorized platform under a Dobsonian (my own setup) to motor-drive it, which some consider the best of both worlds.

On the topic of motorized telescope mounts, I should say something about "Go-to" models. These are not only motorized to track objects, they will slew the scope around to find objects from a database. I'm very much of two minds on these. For an experienced observer, an astrophotographer, or a researcher, they can be an indispensable tool to spend more time observing and less time hunting around. For a total beginner, they can ease a lot of frustration when first learning the sky. But at the same time, they also can keep someone from learning the sky at all, and they can also encourage hopping too quickly from one object to another. If you do that, you can see all sorts of stuff in one evening, while at the same time hardly seeing anything at all.

Visual observing is all about training yourself to see things. One thing every new telescope owner should know is that Very Little Ever Looks Like the Photographs. Especially since the photos are long exposures on wildly sensitive CCD chips, through huge instruments, and under excellent conditions. Through the eyepiece, nebulae are not tapestries of red, pink, green, and purple: they range from greenish grey to bluish grey. And although with practice you'll pick up really surprising and beautiful amounts of detail in deep-sky objects, at first, everything can look like a blob. Or a smear. Or not appear to even be there at all, even when a practiced observer can see it right smack in the center of the eyepiece field. I really enjoy seeing these things with my own eyes, and trying to find out just how much detail I can pick out and how faint I can go, but it's not for everyone.

*cut out bit on astrophotography*

So, what to buy? I've scattered some Amazon links in the above to representative scopes. In general, Meade and Celestron are the two brands you'll see the most, and if you stay away from their cheap refractors, you should be fine. And Orion also sells good stuff of their own brand (On Amazonand from their own site). (Again, I'd stay away from inexpensive refractors there, too). Other good sources are Astronomics and Anacortes.

Update: as pointed out in the comments, an excellent resource for specific opinions on different models, and telescope advice in general, is Scopereviews. Cloudy Nights is also a huge resource.

-Derek Lowe-
Click to expand...

Zera · Jan 1, 2013

Yep, but I'm not the one to ask about buying telescopes.

Have fun, though, and post pictures if you can.

420neverforget · Jan 1, 2013

Neurosis said:

I've always wanted to.. But I have a habit of getting into a hobby only for the novelty to wear off after a short time. While this is fine for many things, astronomy is an expensive novelty. Furthermore, I live in the middle of a city and would have to drive out of the light pollution to see anything at all.

May I copy and paste a tip guide I read not long ago on beginner telescopes (might be handy if you're buying):
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch for the good read.

Yes, it is an expensive hobby. I realized this while reading reviews on scopes in my price range. These would be optimal if I was a 6 year old grandchild.

Zera said:

Yep, but I'm not the one to ask about buying telescopes.

Have fun, though, and post pictures if you can.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I definitely will if I can.

edit: I looked up the article you posted to see the links and in the comments section, someone pointed out in the Little Caesars pizza commercial the telescope is upside down.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmhk6PbUDM[/ame]

Storm Crow · Jan 1, 2013

My brother is into astronomy. He loves going out on a clear night, getting stoned and watching the starts. He gifted us with a telescope he made, "Big Blue" that is almost as tall as I am. We occasionally haul it out for star gazing, but the weather around here is seldom cooperative. Whenever anything interesting is happening, the clouds roll in!

Granny

Havok Se7en · Jan 5, 2013

I've never peeked through a telescope, and the city lights in Vegas kill any chance I have of seeing anything more the a few stars peppering the sky.

The first time I actually saw stars was when I went to Utah for 3 days with my girl's family, and we were in the middle of nowhere.

Forums

Have you ever seen the stars?

420neverforget Banned

Ratio Connoisseur

MysteryRoach69 Banned

Carl Weathers Guest

Zera Registered User

420neverforget Banned

Storm Crow Very Old School Stoner
Old School

Havok Se7en I like to draw.

Share This Page

Network

Forums

Help

Find Us On

Useful Searches

Have you ever seen the stars?

420neverforget Banned

Ratio Connoisseur

MysteryRoach69 Banned

Carl Weathers Guest

Zera Registered User

420neverforget Banned

Storm Crow Very Old School Stoner Old School

Havok Se7en I like to draw.

Share This Page

Storm Crow Very Old School Stoner
Old School