Entry Telescope and Personalised Lens

[Jimbo85]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if you might be able to help me. I am a total novice when it comes to telescopes and lenses however it is something that my partner and I are interested in getting involved with. We have been talking about it for ages, but never got round to it! So for her birthday I want to get a telescope set up for her.

I am looking to purchase an entry level telescope, but I also need to have a custom, personalised lens made. I need a lens made so that it displays a message when you look through the telescope.

My first question is, what is a good entry level telescope to go for, and should I be looking out for any specific things when purchasing one? My second question is, where/how would I go about getting a lens personalised with a message?

I would really appreciate any advice that you might be able to give! Thank you in advance,

Kind regards

Jim (Kent,UK)

[John]

Hi Jim and welcome to the forum !

I'll leave it to others to suggest scopes and where to buy them - there are many choices depending on the budget available.

On the message thing - nice idea but really not practical I'm afraid. Anything engraved on the lens / mirror would be totally out of focus when viewing astro objects and also would degrade the image quality for no purpose. By all means have the outside of the scope tube engraved if you wish - any engraver could to that I reckon - but I'd leave the optics pristine.

[Stargazer_00]

I'd just buy a card. doing any form of engraving will destroy the resale value. Most people sell their first scope once they are bitten to fund an upgrade

[rwilkey]

I would suggest steering away from so called 'entry-level' telescopes, they are often inferior even from good maufacturers like Celestron, no, go in feet first and get a decent telescope from someone like FLO, the forum sponsors where you will get loads of helpful advice and unparrelled customer service. Not sure what scope to suggest as I don't know your circumstances/mobility etc but your first thoughts should be whether to get a refractor or a reflector depending on what type of observing you want to do. I would recommend a very good book called 'Stargazing With A Telescope' by Robin Scaghill to get you started on your trail, cannot recommend it highly enough here:

http://www.amazon.co...ith a telescope Good luck to you both!

[nicks90]

agreed - dont mess with the optics or the tube.

if you really must personalise it, maybe look at getting a customer vinyl wrap to cover the tube with. At least that way if you come to sell it you can remove the wrap and the tube underneath will remain pristine!

[Schorhr]

Hello Jim,

cute idea!

As said, it will Not work and will decrease the image quality.

BUT:

Google for selfmade/diy cross hair eyepieces.

You could engrave, insert a message encarved on plexi glass, or place a thin message made out of wire in a old eyepiece Design, perhaps use a red LED as in iluminated crosshair Finder eyepieces.

This way she will See your message when she looks through it.

As for Starter telescopes, it depends on

Budget

Weight and size (Transport it to a really, really dark place, especially for deepsky/nebulae)

Targets (Planets will look nice in smaller scopes, deepsky requires aperture)

20€ - Astromedia cardboard Newton

25-50€ Firstscope, Heritage 76 or One of the clones from 25€

100€ Get a used 4.5"-6", and perhaps build a rigid Rockerbox mount for 5€

160-180€ Heritage 130p, I think it Starts from 125£ there

230€ 6" dobsonian, great Starter telescope

330€ (used perhaps 200-250€) 8" dobsonian, ideal if her Main interest is deepsky (galaxies, nebula...)

Don't expect hubble pictures though ;-)

Also Plan in two, three decent eyepieces, for example 30€ UWA or 45€ HR Planetary, amazing wide angle views.

Get one for Planets and decent seeing conditions (usualy limited to 200x under mediocre conditions more or less, and never magnify higher as 2xAperture in mm else the image will be too dark) and a overview eyepiece. Perhaps a 2x achromatic barlow for 17€ from Seben if you are on a tight budget, for starters it's great.

On the Heritage 130p along with a 20 and 6mm eyepiece, you will have all neccesary magnifications for observations.

Keep away from budget sets as they are usualy on a weak, shaky tripod. This makes them cheap but observations are horrid. Usualy dealers/manufactors try to make good deals by including a mount that barely holds the telescope.

A good equatorial mount may cost as much as the telescope itself!

a 130/900 on a fake Eq3 (often that's what they lable the astro 3. Mount, or even a eq2) will not be much fun.

Also GoTo is overrated, a good book/star charts, Telrad finder and a dobsonian mount will make viewing much more fun.

A small aperture on a goto mount can never show as much as a larger, manual telescope for the same price.

Unfortunately aperture is key.

A quick comparison, http://clarkvision.com/visastro/m51-apert/

This is what to be expected with experience, long observation and good conditions.

Under 5" there will be only a few objects that will show structure, and eveb those (dumbbell-, ring-, Orionnebula for example) will be much more overwhelming in a large telescope.

[Schorhr]

I just tried with the simple erfle and plössl eyepieces, either use a engraver tool (2€ at eBay shipped) on a 14€ Seben plössl eyepiece, or cut a plastic sheet to size and engrave it instead, as the engraving will be relatively large in the field of view. Or try your luck with a inkjet printable transparency sheet.

The engraved message will show up slightly magnified, and hover infront of the view. On day observations and moon it will be visible.

With a red led the engraving will also be visible at the dark night sky.

... but the eyepiece won't be of much use due to reflections ;-)

[MattGoo]

You could always try writing/engraving a message on a cheap 1.25" filter, which would then screw into most 1.25" eyepieces. Meaning that way you won't affect the optics of the telescope or eyepiece.

[AlexB67]

I would think that method would not work ? it would never focus, either the distant object is in focus and the degrade the image quality due to engraving, or you are completely out of focus on the target, as I found out the other night when there was a hair on my barlow

Best way or cheap method would be with a bit of webcam photography of a planet and photoshop something on afterwards perhaps, either that or take a trip to said target, do your engraving there, come back and observe

[Schorhr]

It does work on the eyepiece lens image plane, the filter idea would be nice and may work with some shorter, older designs.

Here's a link to the cross hair / rectile ep mod

but as said just take a cheap 20mm orbinar plössl and engrave the bottom lens ;-)

[AlexB67]

Yep, see what you mean, I was thinking directly on the top of bottom lens and when not in the image plane. Neat little mod that

[Schorhr]

On the 30mm Plössl I could just place a printed foil on the bottom lens, it won't be 100% Sharp but it would probably do if the project has to be finished quickly ;-) I kind of like the idea, why haven't I thought of something like that? Also for my astronomy course I could print little discs to make finding things easier, though it's probably a bit flimsy.