New To Astronomy - Best Telescope For Under £500?

[Zaine UK]

Hello all,

My name is Martin and i live in Sidmouth. I'm going to join the Norman Lockyer Society soon so i'm sure i'll be able to get some good advice. Will be very interesting to be part of something like that. I feel really luckly to have something like that on my doorstep.

I thinking of buying a Telescope and have been looking on Amazon etc. I have a budget upto £500. Whats the best Telescope for that money. If i had to go slightly higher for a much better one i would.

I have no clue what type or make, but i keep getting drawn to Meade Telescopes. Is this a good make?

[kostur]

try this :

Skywatcher Apochromatic refractor AP 80/600 EvoStar ED OTA and later buy mount, or this:

Skywatcher Dobson telescope N 254/1200 Pyrex Skyliner Classic DOB and enjoy your view (by the way, u'll have to buy colimator too, like 20-50€)

[Black Knight]

Meade are a well known brand, just like Celestron, Skywatcher and Orion Optics.

A reflector will give you most bang for your buck as it were, particularly if mounted on simple Alt-Azimuth base, known as a Dobsonian. An 8" reflector such as this First Light Optics - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian will give you great views of solar system and deep space objects. And leave enough money in your budget for bits and pieces like additional eyepieces, a Telrad or Rigel finder, a collimating tool and so on.

[Zaine UK]

Thanks.

[bullettooth]

have you been on the first light optics website? link at the top of this page.

there is lots of choice so just look around and decide what type of scope you want and on what mount ie dob, EQ etc and what you ideally want it to do for you. like do you want to get into astro photography or just want some good things to look at.

its got a lot to do with personal preference so you should try and get as good of an idea of what you want as you can so you can get better recommendations.

good luck.

oh and welcome to SGL

[rwilkey]

Welcome to SGL. Go to First Light Optics as suggested above, go to the experts rather than Amazon. I agree with all the suggestions above.

[ollypenrice]

Keep away from Amazon, as above, and go to experts who know what they are selling. FLO are in there with the best of them. After you've been to a few meetings and seen some kit in the flesh you'll have a better idea of what's what.

If I were spending your budget I'd buy a Dobsonian and some things like a Telrad finder device, charts, a red light... but you might prefer other options. It's quite personal in the end.

Olly

[Gloris]

i recently bought the skywatcher 200p dob from FLO, and I'm hugely impressed. It all depends on your intended use though....if you're looking at astro photography, you might want to look at something with a tracking mount? I can't imagine anyone getting any decent long exposure results using a dob....but for just observing like me, it's a great bit of kit for the price. within your budget is the next step up, the 10" dob.....or you could get the 8" and invest in some decent eyepieces. Even with those supplied though, the views are fantastic, much clearer and more detailed than I've seen before.

If you're just starting out like me, a find a dob pretty easy to use, there's no complicated setup or polar alignment to consider, it's just take it out, let it cool down and then have fun gazing

As far as detail goes....so far, I've seen the bands on jupiter, it's 4 main moons, the nebula in orion (although, don't go expecting beautiful colours like the pics in text books, they obviously rely on long exposure photographs/filters and a certain degree of artistic liscence in after processing, but the natural view is a beautiful wonderous sight all the same), and have even managed to split a number of double stars, something which i never even realised existed.

one thing i would reccommend investing in is a book called "turn left at orion", which gives you a good overview of whats up there, where to find it, and what you should see in your dob so you know you're looking at the right thing

i've found it an absolute godsend....be sure to get the most recent edition though (or you'll end up with sky charts from way back, and references to eclipses long gone).