Choosing your first telescope

Hi,

Thought it might be a good idea to put up some links containing advice for people thinking about buying a telescope for Christmas.

Buying your first telescope or indeed buying one for your son or daughter requires reading up a bit on telescopes. Unfortunately there are many pitfalls. There are lots of bad telescopes out there that will just frustrate you, and if it is a present for your son or daughter they could put them off the hobby for good. There are also some shops that charge extortionate prices, so shop around!

Firstly we have this guide by Dave Lillis from Shannonside Astronomy club
www.geocities.com/shannonsideac/choose.htm
This page will explain all the different types of scope that are available and what they are optimally suited to.

astunit.com/tutorials/firstscope.htm
This guide is by Stephen Tonkin, a regular contributor to uk.sci.astronomy, and author of several books. This guide is UK based and mentiones UK suppliers, and while many UK suppliers will deliver to Ireland I'll give a list of the Irish Dealers a little later on.

A quick search online should give you plenty more information on choosing a telescope, hopefully these links will be of help understanding the jargon of other guides.

Irish Suppliers:
Andromeda Optics, www.andromedaoptics.com , they are the Irish Suppliers, based in Dublin, for Meade, Helios, Intes and several other quality names.

North Down Telescopes, www.mccreaa.freeserve.co.uk/ , this Northern Ireland shop supplies telescopes from all the top brands.

Astronomy and Space Ltd., www.astronomy.ie , this is the company behind `Astronomy Ireland`. I mention them only for completeness as they appear very, very expensive.

If you would like to get a look through some telescopes to see what you really will be able to see, you should get in touch with your local astronomy Club, and they will be happy to show you some equipment. Their contact details are in the `IFAS Member Clubs` link on the right.

Finally, if you have any queries about purchasing a telescope, please feel free to post your queries here and we will do our best to help you out!

Happy Christmas and Clear Skies,
~Al

Just noticed that Sky and Telescope are also running a `Choosing Your First Telescope` guide:
skyandtelescope.com/howto/scopes/article_241_1.asp

Cheers,
~Al

Just to make people aware, Aldi are selling reflectors on an alt-az mount at the moment (3.75" I think they are - some funny number like that anyway.) Considering they are sixty-something euro, I'm sure many children will wake up to one of these on Christmas morning.....pity they're getting introduced to the hobby on a wrong footing.
Michael

Michael, im not sure, I know 2 locals who have these telescopes and for that kind of money they are good value, I made up a Baadar solar filter cell for one of them and gave him a better quality eyepiece and they work reasonably well, these telescopes can be made better by the addition of better eyepieces and solar images are good
Better these telscopes than the rubbush that most "camera stores" will be selling for this and every Christmas
Charles

I have one at home. Yes, it's not my perfect scope (I also have a NexStar 4, a C5, a Televue Ranger, a PST and one of the new Lidl LXD75s - must sell some things now to make space) but it's the one I'm most likely to use for a quick peek, particularly when there's dew or a likelyhood of rain. Add a decent eyepiece and a Baader Fringe Killer and it's a perfectly OK scope.

Telescopes are not cheap (unless you shop in Lidl). Let's not be equipment snobs.

someone in Galway did one also


www.galwayastronomyclub.ie/buying%20a%20telescope-ed3a.htm