Hi I am new to this forum. Have bumped into Phil over at Randi's where I am a regular.

I have been thinking of investing in a telescope for some time now and have been told that if I am serious I should be able to put up some real money. The Galileo types I come across are mere hogwash (this from the venerable Mr. Plait himself).

I have just come in possession of a Samsung 7~15 X 35N Zoom Binocular. Is this a good enough alternative in lieu of those Newtonians with a 75mm objective advertised by Galileo?

Any tips on how I can make the most of these Binoculars for stargazing?

Any help will be welcome.

Welcome to the board.

You most certainly don't want to think about a telescope until you've gained real experience at naked eye and binocular observing. Telescopes are, by comparison, cumbersome and for a newbie, who doesn't know what to look at, it can be irritating to set it up and so it just gets put aside and never used.

First thing you should do is get a good star atlas and find the constellations with the help of your binoculars. I like seeing if I can run through the Greek alphabet, trying to find stars in order of their Bayer designation (eg Beta Orionis, the Beta star of Orion). Orion is a good starter for this kind of thing because it is a much brighter constellation. Make sure your torch is reddened so it won't knacker your dark vision.

Once you know the sky with more confidence, then go for a telescope. More powerful ones are more expensive so you have to consider how much you are likely to get out of it due to both time available and the light pollution in your area. Do not go for any telescope that has a stopped down finderscope, (ie, if you look down the finderscope, you see a rim of back under the lens). That's a sign that your money could be better spent on a higher quality telescope.

Welcome to the board. Lots of fun people here.

Actually, I did have the same sort of question. I'm looking to buy a telescope (first one we had was a Tasco Special...currently only have the scope and the mount, I took the lens off for a project) and found three moderately-priced ones from Orion.

My three picks

SkyQuest™ XT6 Dobsonian with FREE Filter Set - $329 150mm mirror

StarMax™ 102mm EQ Compact "Mak" - $329 (389 normally)

AstroView™ 6 EQ Reflector 150mm - $369

The SkyQuest and the Astroview are essentially the same, but the SQ has a Dob mounting, and the AV has an EQ-3. The SM has an EQ-2 mount on it.

I was wanting the SM, because it does have upgradability later on (so does the AV).

It's been said in almost every article on scope buying that Dobsonian mounts are the best for beginners. I would agree. However, I don't think it'd be very stable on the uneven ground where I live (hills of Vermont). Portability isn't a problem, I have to walk maybe thirty feet at a max to a suitible location, and light issues are nill.

My mother (the whole family wants a scope now) suggested getting one that can have a computer-driven motor (they saw a bunch of 'scopes over at B.J.'s Wholesale club at Christmas, that had controllers). I think it would be nice, but not required.

What do I want to see? Planets and their moons, Luna, and some deep-sky nebulae.

What do you guys think?

Thanks

Aperture wins.

So, the largest diameter scope you can get, and still meet your requirements for cost and portability will likely be the best (of course, there are other requirements, like stability of the mount, and many many nice to haves like electronics).

Luna and Jupiter and Saturn can look pretty nice in small telescopes, but when you get to hunting down faint nebulae and galaxies and clusters, then you will want the extra light gathering capability of a larger scope.

35mm binos really won't show you much, other than the Moon, although you might be able to tease out Saturn's rings (but just barely) at 15x. You could view Jupiter and it's moons on a small scale, the Andromeda galaxy, the Orion Nebula, Omega Centauri, and maybe the other brightest ~> 6th magnitude deep sky objects.

My observing friend and I agree that the best, relatively inexpensive, general purpose scope is an 8" newtonian. Orion has a well regarded 8" on a dobsonian mount for about $450.

http://www.telescope.com/shopping/pr...ProductID=4179

If you want something more portable in the same price range, I'd recommend a quality 80mm refractor. Stellarvue makes a very good 80mm achromat, it's about $500. You'd also need a mount, but a good tripod and alt-az mount will work with that small a scope.

http://stellarvue.com/at1010n.html

Astronomy's a great hobby - and also a great excuse to go car camping! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Good luck in your search(es).

When you're going to buy a telescope/binoculars you need to think about what it is you want to do and what you can afford.

Glom gives some excellent advice. If you haven't yet learned the brighter constellations, then a lot of naked eye observing, a planisphere or sky insert from Astronomy or Sky&Telescope (or even the orion Telescope website), and a decent pair of binoculars is a good place to start. Keep in mind that for $200 it is hard to find a good mounted telescope but for $200 you can get a great pair of 7x50 binoculars. With binoculars you will have plenty of star clusters, double stars, nebula, and galaxies to hunt.

On the other hand, if you can afford a little more and you really want to start out looking at the Moon and Planets, then a telescope is a good option.

You'll probably get lots of opinions here, so take your time to make your decision. The amateur telescope and binocular market is big.

Yeah, I have about $450 to work with. I've done a good chunk of naked-eye observing and have seen all sorts of wonderful objects. It gets very dark where I live on a moonless night, and I take advantage of it.

I haven't picked up Astronomy magazine yet as a subscription, but I do have several issues.

Got to do a little solar viewing today. My father has a nice weilding helmet, and we use it for observing solar eclipses. Also good to watch the sun set and try and spot any thing moving around the sun's immediate area.

Susheel! Howyadoin?? Yep, it's me from over Randi way...great minds think alike, I guess...

The first place to check out is TBA's page on these matters:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/pantry.html
and then check the various entries under 'Observing The Skies' and 'Hubble And Other 'Scopes'.

The next set of places I'd go is:
http://www.telescope.com/content/lea...avIDs=19,21,91

http://www.telescope.com/content/lea...avIDs=19,22,28

(Yes, these two are part of a commercial site, but don't let that throw you. There's lots of good information here!)

If I may...recommendations from someone who's started out the same as you have, and is extremely frugal (also known as awful feckin' cheap...)
"Touring The Universe Through Binoculars", by Philip Harrington
http://www.telescope.com/shopping/pr...iProductID=473
I have a copy of this, and it's extremely worthwhile. I'd actually recommend this being the very first thing you buy, because what's in here will give valuable guidance to your search for equipment and the wonders of the skies.

A few accessories never hurt anyone...
http://www.telescope.com/shopping/pr...iProductID=437
The red light doesn't wash out your night vision, the Moon's the easiest object to observe, and the planisphere and 'Discover The Stars' are nice little beginner's roadmaps to the stars.

Now...don't blow your cash on a 'scope right off. Let's see if you're really into this sort of stuff. In fact, don't buy any optics at all until you can sort of navigate your way around the sky with the naked eye. Can you find and name at least five different constellations, not including The Little Dipper? (If you're below the Equator, substitute The Southern Cross in the prior sentence.)

When you do buy, your first optics should be binoculars. They are inexpensive, can be used for more than one purpose (by the nature of their images, astronomical telescopes are rather purpose-limited), are lightweight, portable, and unobtrusive.
Quality is a factor. Brand names are usually reputable. Aperture rules -- as has been said before, with binoculars, the first set of numbers is magnification, the second set is diameter of opjective lenses (aperture). I have an old set of Tasco 10x50's -- ten power, and the opjective lenses are 50mm. If you have an old pair of 7x35's around, those are excellent starters.
The bigger the aperture, the heavier they will be, and the harder to hold steady (unless you mount them on a tripod, or brace your arms). If purchasing, anything 7 to 11 by 35 to 60 will do -- 7x35's, 7x50's, 8x42's, 10x50's, 11x60's...just remember, price and size go up together.

Finally, remember these things. No matter what you're looking through, what you're looking at NEVER LOOKS LIKE THE PICTURES!!!
(Don't be disappointed that your eyeballs don't give results matching the Hubble.)
And, some of your most enjoyable and well-spent observing time will be spent just lying back, gazing up, and using nothing more than your eyes.

Enjoy the skies!!

Oh yeah...don't forget to check out The StarGeezer's weekly stuff! (StarGeezer? Well, that's what he called himself when I met him at TAM...)
http://www.jackstargazer.com/

__________________
"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Thanks for all the good advice.

I have already begun doing a lot of unaided stargazing using a printed map of the sky from the 'starcalc' program I downloaded. It's okay for my needs at present.

The red masked flashlight is a good idea though. I think I have one of those LED kechain flashlights...I'll see if I can dig it up.

Hey good to see you Charlie. That book seems really interesting. I'll see if my local book store can acquire one for me.

Here's a good series of articles on how to get started in astronomy:

http://skyandtelescope.com/howto/scopes/

Also, the reason I feel an 8" newtonian is the best all around choice, if price is a consideration but portability isn't, is because it's good for both planetary and deep sky observing. A friend has an 8" f/6 Meade Starfinder, and it gives excellent planetary images when the seeing is good. A couple times this year we've observed Saturn rock solid at 380x - an awesome view! Of course at that power a driven equatorial mount is a huge plus. Also, from a dark site we've had nice views of all 110 Messier objects, plus hundreds of other "faint fuzzies".

I have a 13" dobs that's great for deep sky, but the big, fast (f/4.5) mirror isn't quite the quality of the 8" f/6, mostly because the latter is much easier to make accurately, so his scope gives sharper high power views. I recently purchased a good quality 4" f/6.9 refractor, that's really good for planetary and widefield views. So now I feel I have the best (well, up there anyway!) of both worlds.

Hope this helps!

__________________
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein

Well, for what it's worth, I just picked up a $310 Meade ETX-70-AT from the local Kit's camera shop and I've had a great time looking at the moon and the larger Messier Objects. It does a wonderful job tracking objects once you sight them in and you can go inside for 20 minutes or more and come back out and Jupiter, or the moon, or whatever you're looking at is still visible. If you go to the Meade website and look, you'll find the specs on the ETX-70. It looks to me, compared to the larger models, like it is a "hybrid" cross between a refractor and a reflector. They state that it has both a lens and a mirror...
I was a 7X50 binocular astronomer up to this point, having spent 2 years reading every "backyard" astronomy book that I could get my hands on and looking at everything that I could see thru those binocs. I am only working with the 9mm and 25mm eyepieces that come w/the scope but have found the view of Saturn and Jupiter and the Orion Nebula to be quite spectacular w/the higher power.
It has an easy alignment system based on either on or two stars and as I said earlier, will slew very accurately on whatever object you select once you align it on those two stars.
That's my two cents...
It's a "go to" scope which does add to the price, and like previous posters have said, you can get a much larger mirror for just a little more, but my personal concession was to begin with this very affordable option and proceed up from here. Plus, it's very portable and can be used for terrestrial view ing for wildlife and such and can be taken along easily as a carry on for vacations.
I was a skeptic and wanted at least a $2500 Meade 8" GPS model to start with, but am very happy to have this for now.
Cheers and Happy viewing!
Alicia

I started looking at telescopes to increase the depth of my viewing. Then I got stationed in Hawaii. As it turns out, Hawaii is a TERRIBLE place for stargazing, unless you are standing on top of Mauna Kea on the big island. Too many lights, too much humidity, and nowhere to go to escape it! Make sure you take your environment into consideration to determine if buying a telescope is a worthwhile investment.

can someone direct me to a page where i can find star maps for eqatorial skys, all the maps i find over here are for america and england latitudes, and it gets frustrating when i figure it out look up and see.... nothing.
cheers

AKstar,
The Meade ETX-70-AT is a refractor. The larger models - ETX-90EC, ETX-105EC, and ETX-125EC - are Maksutov-Cassegrains (what you call a "hybrid").

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

You could try downloading the starcalc programme from here:

http://www.relex.ru/~zalex/main.htm

It's a nice program which allows you to generate a map of the sky as seen from anywhere in the world. You just have to give your lat/long coordinates.

Does some other nifty things to. You can upgrade it with the plugins that they keep offering and it's all for free.

I like an old DOS freeware program - Skyglobe v3.6. It's very easy to use. You can get it here:

http://www.astunit.com/software/astroprog.htm

Kaptain K,
Thanks for the info. I was confused about the configuration of the ETX-70. I thought that it was some sort of wierd cross between a refractor and the Maksutov-Cassegrains, so thanks for clearing that up! Now if I could only become an "expert" at using it...

GENIUS'02 -- I suggest Stig's Sky Calendar ( http://www.skycalendar.com/skycal/index.html ). It's usable online, or there's a downloadable version. Has a planisphere for the stars, and a separate one for the solar system planets. You can set your location (lat/long), or pick from a list. Very handy, very simple, and very nice.

SUSHEEL and anyone else just starting...
I am about to wax eloquent here, so go get a beer or a cup of tea, make yourself comfy, and enjoy this little astronomical morality play.

Last night was one of the most exciting and fulfilling astronomy sessions I've ever had. I saw more new things, and learned more new things, than any other single night I've ever spent gazing at the skies.

The snow out at the Miami Valley Astronomical Society observatory at John Bryan State Park was finally gone, except for a little bit around the base of the south fence. It's a heck of a change from when the whole thing was under 16" a few weeks back. The weather was quite pleasant, dropping from the mid 60's F to the mid 40's at its worst. Everyone was there, and it was obvious that spring had sprung, as the telescopes were in bloom at JBSPO...

We hauled everything out we could lay our hands on. From 7x50/10x50/20x80 binoculars and a parallelogram mount, to 4 1/2" dobs, to 4" Takahashis, to 12" F6 Dobs to the 10" Meade LX200 at the imaging station to the 12" F10-or-so in the dome, it was all cranked up and being used. Not to brag, but
http://www.mvas.org/archive/brochures/Tri-fold1.pdf ...there's pictures...

Anyway, there was a front moving in, which put a high thin haze into the sky, and as warm as it was, the cold squishy-wet ground generated its own ground fog. We found out pretty quick that visibility s*ck*d. BUT -- the seeing was FANTABULOUS. Isn't this a contradiction? Nope...

The visibility was bad. We just couldn't see that much. Naked eye, if it was dimmer than 4th magnitude, odds are you weren't going to see it. It took magnification to pick out the dimmer targets that normally would be naked-eye marker stars. The low fog, the high haze, and the full moon (ESPECIALLY the Full Moon) just washed everything out. The top jewel in Orion's sword was just barely there. Naked eye constellation gazing was worthless.

BUT -- what could be seen with magnification was magnificent. The gauzy veil of M42 was plainly visible even with as low as 10x50 binoculars -- it was minorly spooky when viewed through an 8" Newtonian. I saw the Trapezium for the first time, and the view was solid as a rock -- no atmospheric wibble-wobble at all.

Saturn and Jupiter were front and center. I caught some of Saturn's moons, picked out the Cassini ring division (two first-time occurences on Saturn for me), and was able to make out the chunk of shadow that Saturn took out of its own rings. Jupiter didn't disappoint -- the four inner moons stood out like background stars, and four cloud bands were plainly visible, along with lots of little storm swirls from the dark into the light bands.

It seems as if the front coming through back here on Planet Earth was pretty much the same temperature and humidity as the low-to-the-ground air, which meant that there were no atmospheric difference layers for the light to go through. The images were extremely steady, and that made extra magnification possible to pick out details not normally available. So, while visibility was really bad, SEEING was great! This was a big lesson I learned that night -- how much you can see is one thing, but how well you can see it is a whole different category.

John Chumack was out back, painting the inside of his new dome flat black in preparation for installation of his rich-field 16" dob (John has forgotten more about astronomy and astrophotography than I'll ever know -- he's a great one to pick his brain, and he's more than willing to share his knowledge -- check his site at
http://www.galacticimages.com/ -- there's lots of information there on building your own backyard observatory). He'd heard all of us hooting and hollering about how good the seeing was, and after he closed the paint cans he took a quick look through one of the small scopes on the sidewalk. Next we knew, his SUV was scooting through the gate headed home for his video gear. (John lives about a mile from me, and I know the route he had to take to get home and back -- from how long it
took him to get home, load up, and get back, I'm guessing that Greene County's Finest were on a donut break...someone missed making their ticket quota big time...).

While John was flying low, I'd been up on the 12" scope in the dome. No one else was there, and I had it all to myself. After half an hour, I went back outside, and staggered around in the dark being sort of blind in one eye, as I'd been perusing the moon (with no moon filter) for all that time. I saw detail that I never knew existed...craters in craters, rilles and ridges going here there and everywhere, dark and light marias...can't wait for those new eyepieces and moon filters for my little 3" to arrive so I can play at home...

John returned, and we all went upstairs and helped rig cameras and monitors and scopes and ladders...the Astrovid camera was set for maybe 100 power or so magnification, and we spent the next three hours videoing Saturn, Jupiter, and the Moon...there's going to be a lot of photo processing of the individual frames to make single images, but there is already a single frame posted on our club's website gallery -- http://mvas.org/gallery/chumack/saturncloseupvid1.jpg . Can't wait to see the final products...

So, after all this exclaiming over last night, let me bring out again the main point of this missive. Just because it looks like you can't see anything doesn't mean you can't
see anything. Break out those binoculars. See just how much is visible with a little assistance. The full Moon isn't always a curse; you just have to get past the glare
and see what's lurking in the background. And watch the weather -- the less conflicting layers of atmosphere, the steadier the view and the more detail will pop out.

Simply speaking, Visibility and Seeing are two different things. Don't confuse them.

Related BA pages:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/twinkle.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/vlt.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/howfar.html


_________________
I am Dyslexia of Borg; prepare to have your *** laminated. - Lori Martin

Yours in cogno-intellectualism
Charlie in Dayton

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Charlie in Dayton on 2003-03-17 00:36 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Charlie in Dayton on 2003-03-17 00:47 ]</font>

Charlie,
Comgratulations! You have discovered something that many of us have learned over the years: Hazy air is often (not always) very stable. "Faint fuzzies" are a washout, but lunar details, planetary details and close double stars can be outstanding!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Hey g99. Your list of continents are growing. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Good to have more Asians around.

Welcome Susheel.

Last night was great for seeing. It was warm enough to let me stay outside for a few hours attatched to an aluminum mount! I dragged my parents outside to show them the different details of Luna, they were very impressed. Finding things is so much easier when your finder scope is aligned properly.

I sought out Jupiter next and found it after a few minutes of careful adjusting (Equatorial Mounts stink!) and found it as a slow-moving squashed disk. The 'scope I have isn't that great, even with the lower magnifications I couldn't see any detail, just a white disk with a darker band around the edges. I think I may have seen a moon or two.

After that, Saturn was my next target. I end up finding a neato-star thought, and study that for a few minutes before finally locking in on Saturn. Too bad the tree branch twigs were right there...or were those the infamous rings? I shall have to look tonight after work.