skatha Posted March 22, 2006 Report Share Posted March 22, 2006 Any here? If so, what's your setup and what's your interest? Me, I've got 2 Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrains, a 8 inch and a 5 inch. Neither has any GOTO capabilities Both are on fork mounts When I lived in Wichita Falls, I was interested in deep sky sights, however, in the perpetual orange skies of Houston, I'm thinking of turning more to doubles and planetary viewing.... Plus, getting a hydrogen-alpha filter for some solar work, but the cost still puts snowboard purchasing to shame Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin A. Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 I have a 7.5" Meade MTX7500. Has the goto functions and everything like electric focus, tracking, and electric turning. The goto is cool, but takes WAY too long to set up to make it useful. A really cool thing that I like is that I can link it with my computer and view from the inside on really cold nights(which are often the best for stargazing around here) There's a really good program that I found called Starry Night. Load it onto the laptop and set your long/lat and you can get positions until infinity and even go back in time. The best part is that you can type in anything in the sky (to a point) and it will show you on the screen and if you have it linked to the scope, it will point it at the object. Its really cool and easy. Im a big fan of the neighbor's bedroom...I mean nebulae and planets. Havent broken it out in awhile, maybe I will tonight ________ Kawasaki Kd80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gecko Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 I havea 6in Bushnell telescope that my wife gave to me 4 years ago...I did some looking and learning how to use it in Hawaii but it was useless in Japan (light pollution). Here it Westerly I have a spot to set it up that has good southerly viewing so hopefully I'll be able do some looking this summer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skatha Posted March 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Give me setting circles and lots of hot chocolate.....I love being outside when I'm stargazing..... Plenty of cool nights in W.F. looking for 9th magnitude nebulae and listening to coyotes-the dogs, not the Mexican people smugglers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Waterboy Posted March 24, 2006 Report Share Posted March 24, 2006 Given the eccentricity of hard-booting I'm not surprised there are a few stargazers in the ranks. Although I don't have any equipment myself, I must admit when I was buying my digital camera I couldn't help perusing some of the fairly decent looking (at least from an ignorant layman's point of view) range of reflector scopes the store had on offer. Some of the pic's of the sides of the telescopes' boxes were really magnificent, but I wondered whether the power of what was on offer was actually good enough to be able to see those things. Last Christmas one of my sister's gave her boyfriend a book of photo's of astronomical objects. Every page was a jaw-dropper and it got me wanting to find a scope and have a look around, but the same thing happened - had a feeling a lot of the photo's in the book would have been taken with mega-buck equipment. So to get down to it..... what do you actually need in terms of equipment to see some decent stuff? And come to think of it, I quite like checking out the night sky; I remember checking out Halley's Comet with the family binoculars when it swung by, and on some of the back-country snowboard trips I've done here in Australia, (to borrow a phrase from some poet I can't remember) the stars fairly blazed. Wouldn't mind having something I can take out on the beach with a blanket or rug and have a look round for a few hours (& thanks for the tip of hot chocolate Skatha; will make sure I pack a thermos of some). Would be a nice thing to do. Kinda romantic too. Whoops, straying into the "OT, waaaay OT...." thread's territory now. It's a cloudless day here in Melbourne. Think I'll give my sister a call and see if I can drop by their place tonight so we can pull out the boyfriend's scope to try and check out a few of the things in his book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skatha Posted March 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2006 If you want some recommendations of some easy to use, low cost stuff, let me know.... Whatever I'd recommend would be easily obtained in Oz.... get online and check out the Sky and Telescope site http://skypub.com They have southern hemisphere editions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Waterboy Posted March 28, 2006 Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 G'day Skatha, I'm really glad you started this thread up; it led me to having a fairly unusual, and thoroughly enjoyed experience this weekend just gone. Had a bit of a sleep-in on Saturday morning, and got up about 9:30am. Seeing as it was a bright glorious morning without a cloud in the sky, I was having a leisurely breakfast outside around 10am, pulled out my Dad's (really beautiful) old pair of 8x50 Zeiss binoculars and was having a good old squiz at…. ... the craters, plains and mountain ranges on the Moon! Even though it was a bright sunny day, the moon was fairly high in the sky and well lit by the sun. Checking out the lunar landscape is certainly a bit different, but definitely a great way to have your brekky! Have been looking through a few shops & checked out Sky & Telescope website - it's got some good info on how to work out the decent binoculars & scopes from the ones that sound flash to the uninitiated, but which are in reality doomed to disappoint & frustrate you. However it doesn't give you a very clear idea of what you are going (and more importantly not going) to be able to actually see through these things. Some pic's listed against the equipment it was actually taken with is what I'm really looking for, and which would be my major guide to working out what I want to get my hands on. I was thinking a Newtonian reflector scope, but am not sure what length & diameter, eyepiece(s), etc. GOTO capability and automated tracking would be nice to have, but I probably don't really need it (I'm patient and was pretty good at handling a microscope back at Uni - a telescope is almost exactly the same, but just does things the other way 'round!). Just the basics with the ability to see as much as possible is all I'm really after. So am very interested to hear your recommendations of some easy to use, low cost stuff. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skatha Posted March 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2006 Binoculars are a good thing to have-a fair number of Messier objects with very low surface brightness actually look much better in them than a telescope 8x50 binoculars are good for general use. 8 mm refers to the size of the image cast on your eye and a fully dark adapted pupil is about 8 mm 50 mm is the size of the lens on the opposite side of the binoc or light gathering capability. A good range for astronomical uses is the 50-70 mm range. Beware of going to the 10x70 marine range-they are too heavy (without a stand) to hold for a good long time 50 divided by 8=6 or so, also the magnification of the binoc I have 8x56 binocs for astronomical viewing Newtonians are good telescopes and both Meade and Celestron make some good ones for starting scopes. The 4 inch range is good and low cost. I also really recommend Orion telescopes. The optics are first rate and the cost is low because the aren't a "name". http://telescope.com (for Orion products) I just hit google.au telescopes and found http://astronomyonline.com.au Also, eBay is a good place to check for used telescopes Astronomy magazine is a good magazine for beginner's. I found S&T a little too technical at first-but, of course, I didn't remember that when I recommended a website-sorry I chanced upon this http://iceinspace.com.au I'd use the binoc's first....maybe check out either Sky and Telescope or Astronomy for binocular highlights to explore, peruse some magazines or some Ozzie websites and get a little more familiar with astronomy prior to splurging on a telescope, but, once your ready to buy, let me know-you'll need to get the scope plus a few extras like an extra eyepiece or two, a few filters, and a Barlow lens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.