Astronomy / Telescopes

[PTeppic]

All the space "stuff" going on in the series is sort of inspiring me to purchase a telescope and set it up here at the Embassy. Now they look like being pretty expensive, and funds are limited here.

Can anyone offer any advice? Not least, I was thinking of the Tasco Luminova 675: good, bad, or reasonable for a total beginner?

 

[ray gower]

The Jodrell Bank website gives some basic advice on purchasing binoculars and telescopes for star gazing and for what to look out for. Their general advice is unless going for something biggish (4" or greater), you are better off with a good set of binoculars

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/public/viewsky.html

My tip, for what it is worth, is avoid anything with plastic lenses. There is nothing worse than peering through the fog of scratched lenses

As for Tasco stuff, thier lenses are reasonable for the price

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by ray gower
Their general advice is unless going for something biggish (4" or greater), you are better off with a good set of binoculars.

Patrick Moore used to give that advice too. So, I bought binoculars rather than a telescope. I would add that you should buy a pair of binoculars with large lenses. The magnification isn't that important, but if you have a large magnification and a small aperture everything will be blured. For astronomy you need much more light to get in than you do for birdwatching.

 

[PTeppic]

I've since taken delivery of a brand new (2003!) book specifically aimed at the budget market, including a review of some telescopes from high street stores, one of which was my potential purchase. It reckons that in the last 2-3 years things have really improved at the top end of quality in the bidget range, i.e. less than c. UKP250, but there are still a lot of rubbish toys out there...

 

[gr8scott]

If you end up getting binos, you'll probably want a good tripod mount. Every time I go camping and use mine to stargaze, I can't keep the things still enough to get a clear image.

If you get a telescope, pay close attention to the mount. I believe there are three types. It's been awhile since I was into this, but I believe my favorite was the Equatorial Mount. Advantages to haveing a telescope over binos are... 1) you can mount a SLR camera to the viewpiece and take long exposure pics of things, and 2) you can use a motorized mount with tracking software to "guide" your scope to track stars movement.

One thing I always wanted to do, but don't have time, is to actually build the scope (but buy the mount). They have lens grinding kits that you can purchase. However, I hear it's very labor intensive to grind a lens.