Telescope for a beginner

[etorres]

Surfing the net for information on telescopes I stumbled on this wonderful site.
I bought my girlfriend a Meade ETX- 80 telescope from the Discovery Channel store. While I did see the rings of saturn , and the moon look ok, it left me with the feeling the I wanted more, so now I am looking at different models for myself. I am a relative newbie, all I know is that the bigger the aperature, the better. As of now I am concentrating my search on dobsonians because I understand that they offer the biggest aperature bang for the buck, and as college student my budget is not the largest.
So what are the best dobsonians for under $800? I have narrowed my choices to:
Celestron starhopper 10 inch ($499.99) or 12 inch ($819.99)
Orion Skyquest XT10 intelliscope (649.99)
Meade Lightbridge 10 inch truss tube ($649.99)

The Discovery Dobs were way too expensive for my budget. Which company has the best bang for the buck and quality, taking into consideration that I am a realtive beginer? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[redshifter]

Any of those will be great, though the Lightbridge series are newer, and I haven't seen/heard much about them. The 12", while good scopes, will also be big and heavy, too much for one person unless you're in good shape. Also, you might need a larger vehicle for a 12" dob, you probably won't be able to get the 12" tube in many cars. I'd go for a truss design scope in anything larger than 10" myself. I have the Orion XT 10" (non intelliscope) dob and I really like it: Large enough to show most anything I care to look at, small enough that it fits in my car (tube in back seat, mount in front), and I can view objects even at zenith while seated. IMO, forget about the intelliscope (IMO half the fun is finding objects myself) and use the saved $ to get good eyepeices and perhaps upgrade the focuser. If you're on a budget, you might consider the Orion XT 8 non-intelliscope, it goes for like $350. An astronomical bargain! (OK that was a bad pun...)

[Kelfazin]

I'm a big fan of Meade scopes, but the only Dobs I ever had was an 8" from Discovery Telescope.

The Celestron's are imports from Taiwan and, though they have very nice quality optics, the base is a little rough (ie: the tensioning bolt loosens up very easily, allowing a lot of azimuth movement, makes it a little difficutl to control)

The Meade Lightbridge scopes are pretty new and I have not had a chance to use one, you may check online for other reviews (if you haven't already :) )

The Orion Dobs are almost always good scopes for the price. They are excellent starter scopes with lots of tried and true technology.

Keep in mind the amount of storage space these kind of scopes can take up as well. The 12" celestron tube alone is almost 5 feet long. If something like that is an issue you may be better off with the Meade truss scopes.

[Fr. Wayne]

Good intro to Orion Dobsonians http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/182138/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1
(best 6mm view I had on it was the Ring Nebula)

[etorres]

Thanks for the advice guys. I am leaning toward the meade lightbridge, altthough they are a bit more expensive than the orion dobs because they are easier to haul and because they look cool (ok, second reason is a bit frivolous, I know). I drive around in a 1996 Honda Prelude, so space is an issue.
Are dobs easy to set up and use, or are they intended for more experienced users? I know that they dont come with goto drives, but so what? Part of the fun is finding whatever I am looking for myself. My girlfriend has a small EXT meade scope and I never use the goto drive.

[JohnW]

Thanks for the advice guys. I am leaning toward the meade lightbridge, altthough they are a bit more expensive than the orion dobs because they are easier to haul and because they look cool (ok, second reason is a bit frivolous, I know). I drive around in a 1996 Honda Prelude, so space is an issue.
Are dobs easy to set up and use, or are they intended for more experienced users? I know that they dont come with goto drives, but so what? Part of the fun is finding whatever I am looking for myself. My girlfriend has a small EXT meade scope and I never use the goto drive.
Dobs are very easy to use. If it's a truss-tube, assembling can be a bit fiddly - practice before it gets dark! In use, the big advantage is that, unlike an equatorial mount, you don't have to polar-align before you start. This can also be a disadvantage - it's harder to keep an object in your field of view, especially if you use high magnification and/or like to look at each object for a long time.

Although they don't come with goto, you can add digital setting circles ("push-to" - the DSC unit tells you which way to move the scope, but you do the work) to many scopes.

[redshifter]

If you're going to be hauling your scope in a 2dr. Prelude, the lightbridge scope (or other truss tube designs) may be your only option for a scope with more than about 6" of aperature. I don't know how you'd get a 48" long tube into the back of that car.

[aurora]

With a Dob, make sure you have a 1x finder (like a Telrad or a red-dot finder). This makes it a lot easier to get started, at least you'll know instantly where the telescope is pointed.

Also, you'll want either a good book, or some charts, or software which will give you the location of good stuff to look for. I recommend "Turn Left at Orion" for beginners with telescopes.

[Dave Mitsky]

Although they don't come with goto, you can add digital setting circles ("push-to" - the DSC unit tells you which way to move the scope, but you do the work) to many scopes.

The Starmaster Sky Tracker Dobs have GoTo. Other dobs can be equipped with the ServoCAT GoTo drive. Both of these systems are quite expensive. There is also the much cheaper Dob Driver II.

An equatorial platform is another option.

Dave Mitsky

[scopedog]

Consider this. Buy something you can sell easliy. You may or may not like it or want something elese. I don't know your location or light polution or jetstream. The etx 125 is sweet and the celestron 8" nexstar might be just right. For my son I purchased a orion 6" dob. Nice,simple but a dob is a hog for space. However if you want to do pictures consider the others. And if you want to sell and move to a apo, the others are easy to box up and place on astromart.

Jim

[braveheart]

[QUOTE=etorres]So what are the best dobsonians for under $800? I have narrowed my choices to:
Celestron starhopper 10 inch ($499.99) or 12 inch ($819.99)
Orion Skyquest XT10 intelliscope (649.99)
Meade Lightbridge 10 inch truss tube ($649.99)

Have you looked at Sky-Watcher scopes? Very good value for money. A friend and I both have 8" dobs and another friend a 10". The 10" still comfortably fits in a small car and is about the limit as far as portability is concerned if you're alone. When tested, all three primary mirrors turned out to be near perfect parabola's and as good as the best anyone could make. You can browse their site http://www.skywatchertelescope.com or that of O'Neils in Canada: http://www.oneilphoto.on.ca/sw2.htm (lots of useful info)
Happy Skywatching!

[Wolverine]

The Discovery Dobs were way too expensive for my budget. Which company has the best bang for the buck and quality, taking into consideration that I am a realtive beginer?

For what it's worth, I'm an XT10i owner (http://www.wolverinesden.org/equipment/) and have been most pleased with it. Astronomy magazine gave it a very favorable review in the last year (I forget which issue offhand), but they touted it as having the finest mass-produced Newtonian optics they'd ever seen. I thought that was quite complimentary.

Do bear in mind though that the object locator is pictured on the XT scopes on Orion's website, but it's not included in the purchase price.

Note: after I typed the above, I headed to Orion's page to get you the URL for illustrative purposes -- lo and behold, their new listing (http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=157232&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=4&iSubCat=9&iProductID=157232) shows the XT10 priced with and without the object locator. Good on them, that used to irritate me. I see that they're also including a copy of Starry Night now with each purchase. Not bad.

The object locator isn't a must-have out of the gate but it sure is handy to fall back on, particularly when you're just getting started.

[redshifter]

I also own an XT10 (the pre intelliscope version; black tube, and I have no desire to upgrade even if I could) and really like it. It's a great blend of enough aperature to see just about everything I want to see, but portable enough that it fits in my car, can be easily set up by one person, and I can remain seated even when observing objects at zenith. However, you should definitely measure your back seat, make absoutely certain that whatever you buy will fit in your car. The XT10 tube is 48" long and about 12" or so in diameter. I'd be concerned about getting a 10" dob to fit in the back of your 2dr. Prelude, unless you have another vehicle.

[Skyywatcher]

You will get quality from any of the companys you mentioned. The Dob will get you more bang for the buck than any other type. Some binoculars are a great help to for the beginner. You will be pointing the Dob so you need to know a bit about the sky and how to find things. There's a zillion at least books that will help you do this. Oh fyi its not the magnification but light capture that you wanta 10 incher is plenty to start with with. Skyywatcher

[skywatch]

I would not get a goto scope. It's more fun to discover things on your own. the eq mounts are nice only 1 knob to turn to observe something over a period of time.