first equipment

[stevesxm]

good morning troops,

                                       i am a retired engineer in the carribean.   i have a brilliant and crystal clear night sky and the other night i was looking and said   "   hmmmm i wonder what all that stuff is up there "   ...   so...    i need a telescope.... 

budget in the 600 $ range,  computer driven and thats the extent of what i know and understand.   i would like the best piece of hardware that allows me to do the most that i can buy at that price.   it doesn't have to be new.   i would rather have a 2 year old used better piece than a new  less good piece...   so a reccomendation  on good used equipment would be appreciated as well.

safe to say that i don't know anything about anything related to this exercise so if you need more info from me i am happy to oblige.

thx,

steve

[Lear76]

After a lot of research I ordered my first "real" telescope yesterday. It's an Orion SkyQuest XT8 and from what I found out it's the best telescope you can get for that amount of money (including an additional 10mm eyepiece and a better finder scope). This one is not computer driven, so if you want that you might need to get a smaller tube, for example Orion XT6i, to stay within budget.

[stevesxm]

After a lot of research I ordered my first "real" telescope yesterday. It's an Orion SkyQuest XT8 and from what I found out it's the best telescope you can get for that amount of money (including an additional 10mm eyepiece and a better finder scope). This one is not computer driven, so if you want that you might need to get a smaller tube, for example Orion XT6i, to stay within budget.

understood.   i just punched that in and from amazon thats a 350 $ item...  now i recognize that spending more money doesn't mean you get more value but  are you saying that another 250 $ won't buy me any meaningful improvement or features or quality ?  im a bit surprized at that .   for instance there is this  for 

Celestron NexStar 5SE Telescope 5" Computerized - 11036   for 700 $ or Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Computerized Telescope    for 500  $

and about 50 others of various models just like them  ,,,   the problem is that while they all seem quite impressive , i don't have any idea at all what i'm looking at or whether they are serious and good hardware or throw away toys...    i have done a fair bit of research  and while i can understand the technical jargon , like all these things , what looks good on paper is not neccesarily good in practice.    what i need is practical advice from people that use this stuff and know the wheat from the chaff.    if occurs to me that you being from finland , maybe your scope was a lot more expensive than what i could buy it for.   i shipped race cars to finland one time and the import duties were astronomical  ... so to speak...

[Lear76]

Hi, yes you are 100% correct. My Orion XT8, plus the extra eyepiece, finder scope and a moon filter set me back 530 euros (including shipping from Germany). This is roughly $650-700 I would say.

When it comes to the practical knowledge, I visited a couple of open doors "star-parties" last winter, where you could try out different types of telescopes. And I really fell for the 8" dobsonians. Sturdy, easy to use, and great view of the planets, the moon and also deep space objects like the M31 galaxy.

[stevesxm]

Hi, yes you are 100% correct. My Orion XT8, plus the extra eyepiece, finder scope and a moon filter set me back 530 euros (including shipping from Germany). This is roughly $650-700 I would say.

When it comes to the practical knowledge, I visited a couple of open doors "star-parties" last winter, where you could try out different types of telescopes. And I really fell for the 8" dobsonians. Sturdy, easy to use, and great view of the planets, the moon and also deep space objects like the M31 galaxy.

thats great advice and thank you.  let me look at those.

[NGC 1502]

Hi Steve, I realise that your location is a large area, however it's possible that this link http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/club-view.cfm?Club_ID=155 could put you in touch with local astronomers.

Almost all the amateur astronomers I've come into contact with have been friendly and helpful.  Nothing beats local contact, advice and perhaps the opportunity to meet up and (with luck) try other folks equipment.

If not, SGL has lots of members to help.

Best regards, Ed.

[stevesxm]

Hi Steve, I realise that your location is a large area, however it's possible that this link http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/club-view.cfm?Club_ID=155 could put you in touch with local astronomers.

Almost all the amateur astronomers I've come into contact with have been friendly and helpful.  Nothing beats local contact, advice and perhaps the opportunity to meet up and (with luck) try other folks equipment.

If not, SGL has lots of members to help.

Best regards, Ed.

thats a good idea and ill try it.   obviously this is a maritime area so lots of sailors around who are probably familiar with  celestial navigation to some degree.   i see you are in the UK... my ex girlfriend and i used to have conversations  ( she there and me here about where in the shy and at wht times we could see the same stars...   there were handy internet  lat/lon vs time calculators...   we never seemed to be able to agree on what was where...   i think she needed a compass...