Looking for your telescope suggestions

Hi,
I am thinking of investing in a telescope, and concluded that asking you guys your opinion seems like a good place to start. What would you suggest: 1. If their was no price limit and 2. if there was a limit of 500euro.

thanks

Garvan

[MOD Edit: title altered to be mre atttractive and moved to Begiiners]

Hi,
I am thinking of investing in a telescope, and concluded that asking you guys your opinion seems like a good place to start. What would you suggest: 1. If their was no price limit and 2. if there was a limit of 500euro.
thanks
Garvan
[MOD Edit: title altered to be mre atttractive and moved to Begiiners]

I'd suggest you forget the no-limit price unless you actually do have a vast sum of money available. You could spend a king's ransom on the best telescope, mount, eyepieces, observatory etc etc. It would just be a fruitless exercise in wishful thinking and not a great deal of use to you. Best to decide on a realistic budget suitable to what you can afford. Would be helpful too to let us know what your main astronomical interests are, i.e. solar system objects, deep sky objects or both. Do you want to try your hand at astrophotography? Do you want to find objects yourself or use a computerised GOTO scope. Does the scope need to be portable?

As a good all round visual telescope on a budget of 500 euro, I'd suggest a quality 8" Dobsonian telescope, a few good eyepieces and a good book such as the Messier Marathon Field Guide to get you started. Don't buy a cheap GOTO scope for that kind of price limit as much of the money goes into the electronics and far less into the optics. You would need to raise that budget significantly to get good optics combined with GOTO.

Hi Garvan,
Welcome to the website!
Hope you have fun here.

Two suggestions I would make if you haven't already done them:

1) Check out your local astronomy club. they are all over the country and are full of members only too keen to talk to you and share their experience.

2) If you already don't have a pair of binoculares, a planisphere and pocket star atlas, then I would buy these first. This will cost less than 100euro and will last a lifetime, irrespective of whether you get a telescope later on.

After you've taken these steps, (if you haven't already taken them) then something like an 8" dob would be an excellent investment. The prices of these scopes have fallen in recent years and one can get very good value nowadays.

Best of luck with whatever you decide and if you have any questions whatsoever, please feel free to ask.

Mind me asking what part of the country you are in?

HI,
Thanks for reply. To answer some questions,I would be interested in solar system and deep sky objects, portable would be an advantage, not interested in astrophotography, dont know what a goto scope is.
I could probably stretch budget to a grand! at a push!
by the way I live in the city center in cork, so some city light.

Thanks
Garvan

If their was no price limit

I'd go for the Hubble Space Telescope!

Hi Garvan,
if what you said in your last post is true, then I think the perfect scope would be a 10 inch Dobsonian. It comes in 2 pieces (Optical Tube Assembly (OTA), and box mount), manually handled altaz motion (up-down, left-right), has great light gathering power, and doesn't have any gizmo's. Price-wise, they are very affordable, hitting around the €500+ mark from new, and you can easily get one second hand for a little over half that.

Here are a few links that might help:

www.green-witch.com/acatalog/Dobsonian_Range.html

www.astromart.com/classifieds/list.asp?c...ified_category_id=12

www.telescope-service.com/dobsonians/dob...dobsoniansstart.html

Hope these help,

Seanie.