Noobie with big dreams

[ronin]

You may not be silly but how many optical systems in both visible and infra red have you designed?

A lot of the people here are not silly either, and strangely may have a lot more knowledge and experience then you have.

An optician does not design optical systems.

I was looking at a 19" dobsonian yesterday. Nice, big and close to useless. I will leave you to work out why. It is obvious.

To determine the relative cost of building a scope from scratch I would start at "telescope parabolic mirrors", pretty easy to enter into google or whatever search engine you use. As this is both simple and the obvious start what have you turned up?

telescope kits, build your own. newtonian , dobsonian

Oldham Optical Web Site

Beacon Hill Telescopes

Plans for a Dobsonian telescope

New Page 1

Welcome to Telescope-Service

That lot took about 5 minutes to locate.

[Jet reading]

Absolutly sound advice dude massive thank you

I'll check that out n see what's best for me thank you. See this is why I know I needed advice didn't even think of that I'm a pleb haha.

[umadog]

You say in an earlier post that you want test certain theories by observing nebulae. I don't know what theories you're talking about, but you do understand that all of this work is now done photographically, don't you?

[Jet reading]

Btw that was for umadog. Ronnin? I just said my mate is not gunna cut it and that I would have to buy those parts just stop talking if you haven't got anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

[Jet reading]

Yea man but I'd love to try n get as hands on as pos I won't get anyway but I'll have fun trying

[Jet reading]

Anywhere*

[umadog]

I don't think Ronin meant to be unkind, he was just providing information on mirror grinding. I think he only said what he did because sometimes forum posts are not clearly written and it can be a little hard to understand what someone knows or means. Really, we're just trying to help

What I'd recommend beyond anything else at the moment is that you buy a copy of Nightwatch and digest that before buying a telescope. It'll be easier for you to make informed decisions that way. It's silly to buy a scope right now if it may be the wrong scope for you. Frankly, a 12" scope isn't all that large if it's designed well. The problem with these mass-produced 12" scopes is that they're not designed with portability in mind. Consequently, it may end up being too big.

[saturn4me]

Agree totally!Unlike plenty of other forum's,SGL is different in that people will give their view based on experience and knowledge,and will be just that-An oppinion! Dont take advice the wrong way.People are here to help where they can and many friends can be made.

[cantab]

I was looking at a 19" dobsonian yesterday. Nice, big and close to useless. I will leave you to work out why. It is obvious.

Lemme take a guess, ladder much?

[Jet reading]

Yea fair play sorry folks and of course Ronnin im sorry too. prob just came across wrong ie ive taken it wrongly sorry mate :/

Okay will do that, I mostly read astronomy magazine but there's not masses about telescopes themselves. I'm not gunna be buying yet as I don't have the money yet and even so whenever I spend any money on a long term purchase I do a lot of research first hence why I'm asking for help like I say though I'll stick my head in that mag

I was just try'n check out my limiting magnitude but I'm finding it difficult do you know of any websites that would help please?

[umadog]

There are several common ways of assessing limiting magnitude. Pegasus is quite high in the sky right now so it's a good bet. Check out this PDF: http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/pegasus.pdf

Another common one is Ursa Minor, but that's lower in the sky. Limiting Magnitude Exercise

The Bortle scale attempts to be an addition to limiting magnitude. The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale - Saving Dark Skies - SkyandTelescope.com

These colours are loosely based on the Bortle scale: ROBIN'S ASTRONOMY PAGE light_pollution_uk1

There are other light pollution maps where the colour scale seems to transition more rapidly to no light pollution, but this seems a little suspect to me because the lights from a big city can be visible 100 odd miles away. By the way, this is a better description of what the colours mean: http://cleardarksky.com/lp/VndbtPObNYlp.html?Mn=astronomical