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Noob is an under statement

johngccfc

By johngccfc
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johngccfc

johngccfc

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Guys, I'm taken aback. Thanks so much for the warmest welcome I've ever encountered on a forum - shows the company I usually keep ;o)

The Stellarium suggestion was great, thanks. I've already discovered Turn Left at Orion and The BackTard Astronomers Guide (haven't got them yet but likely will - been reading samples and snippets)

I'm a gadget freak and am fascinated by what everyone has, so I shall be googling the kit from your sigs. An article about the Celestron Advanced VX 8 EdgeHD really gave me something tangible to start learning about. I'm not sure whether thats a smart place to start, its quite expensive but then I do have a camera lens that cost about the same so I guess its all relative. I shouldn't think I'd be choosing a first scope for under about £500 as I've read so many accounts from people who quickly upgraded when they discovered they had something too modest (that didn't show them what they'd hoped to be seeing).

Is there a site (of images) anywhere which shows what I can expect to see from this size aperture or that size magnification or this quality of glass etc. As I've never actually looked through anything beside a spotter scope I'd be really curious to know what 200x (etc) shows you.

The only things I recogise in the sky are the sun, the moon and the saucepan (ok, the plough) but I'd hope to be seeing way further into deep space and having my mind blown.

What I've learned in about 24 hrs is, portable is smart. Mounts (tripods) are expensive. Aperture size is very very important and star gazers are a real nice bunch of folks

Thanks,

John

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Schorhr

Schorhr

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Hello John,

if you like compact and gadgets, check out the Heritage 130p ;-)

Anything larger will require a car or something to transport it to a dark location, unless you live in a truly dark site (without any bright neighbor windows, street lights and roads).

As for what you will see with different size telescopes, that's a difficult subject- it depends on light pollution, experience and collimation. http://clarkvision.com/visastro/m51-apert/

Here you see what to expect under good conditions with different aperture.

Sadly forgot the other site with more examples. I have a german link if you care to run it through google translate though ;-)

While the visual impression never meets that of any hubble photo, it is amazing to experience it yourself and discover more and more details the longer you observe.

200x or more can only be used in good conditions, different objects require different magnifications. If you have stellarium, have you tried setting up a virtual telescope?

(ctrl+o, alt+o).

But keep in mind that in reality, galaxies and such will not be nearly as detailed/colored.

Stellarium will give you a good impression on what size they will be in an eyepiece.

Set up something like a 200mm 1200mm telescope and for starters something like

35mm or 30mm eyepiece (~30-40x overview eyepiece)

15mm (80x)

6mm (200x)

Perhaps something to achieve 250-300x (in reality it requires good conditions and around 6" and up)

Also compare when you set a 50 degree apparent field of view (cheap Plössl type eyepieces) or 70 (Erfle type).

You probably know more objects already, as the brightest stars are the planets Jupiter or Saturn-

As I experienced a couple of times:

"Oh, look at the bright one, that's the north star"

"Uhm, no, actually that's Jupiter"

:-D

Even binoculars show a lot of open star clusters, Jupiter's moons and a few nebulas/galaxies.

Have fun!

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Rockrae78

Rockrae78

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Honestly, I find TL@O to be a really good indicator as to what I will be able to see in either of my scopes. It has drawings of what you can see in a small size scope and a medium (approx 8") at various magnifications. If you haven't bought it already I sincerely recommend that you do! :smiley:

However, there is another site that I have perused in the past (that actually helped me to make up my mind that I wanted an 8" scope - although then choosing which 8" scope was a whole different matter!) which is Deep Sky Watch.

There are sketches on there for objects seen through an 8" scope which I found to be fairly acurate of what I have seen in my 8":

http://www.deepskywatch.com/deepsky-sketches.html

It does also indicate what magnification was used - this is not only dependent on your scope, but EP used too.

Once you have decided what scope you want, next comes the fact finding re eyepieces. There is an excellent thread in the beginners section which gives you a complete guide to buying the right sized eyepieces for your scope and the magnifications you can expect (this information is also clearly explained in TL@O - seriously - buy it!) :grin:

Hope this helps!

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