Beginner worries.

[Solero]

Hello all.

I was given an old Meade N60 telescope a few days ago and last night I looked up at the moon and decided to set it up and have a look. Even put my digital camera up to the eye piece to see if I could get a photo....

http://s486.photobucket.com/albums/rr226/Solero_photo/?action=view&current=DSCF0514.jpg

http://s486.photobucket.com/albums/rr226/Solero_photo/?action=view&current=DSCF0522.jpg

Ok so the pics lack detail (originals are better) but still, I was amazed at how much I could see looking through something that aparantly cost £30.

To get right to the point I want to see more. However I'm concerned that living in quite a light polluted area that I'd be wasting my money. Looking at the moon was great but seeing further out say to Jupiter would be my hope but I'm unsure if that's relistic.

I've always had an interest in astronomy but it's not until now that I've been able to indulge myself

[SurfingNeil]

I'm a begginer live in a light polluted area and have had some great views of Jupiter and it's moons from my Celestron 6"

[Solero]

Also ment to ask in a really dumb way....how low in the sky would things like Jupiter and maybe a nebula or two be. I don't exactly have a view from horizon to horizon here

[Doc]

At the moment Jupiter is very low in the sky so the seeing is pretty poor.

Any half decent scope will show you Jupiter and Saturn.

Download Stellarium it's a freeware planatarium software program. This will help you find your way around.

[Ant]

Not a bad start, if you want a few pointers IMO the focus was off slightly and the image was slightly over exposed.

But apart from that it's great! I've had a little play with curves, levels and unsharp mask. Plenty of detail there...

Ant

[Solero]

Ooo err didn't know you could do that, much better

I can hear the selective groans as I ask the guestion that's been asked a million times before.....What's a good telescope to buy?. I've got my eye on the Skywatcher Explorer -130PM which on paper seems to meet all my bisic needs. However I'm willing to pay a little more for more bang.

[Ant]

It really depends on what you want to do?

You could get yourself something like this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=swinivcamadaptor - it will enable you to perfectly line up your camera with various EP's. It's how I started out lunar imaging.

The scope that comes up again and again is the Explorer 200 on a EQ5 (or preferably HEQ5). But as I say it really depends on what you want to be doing in 6 months or so.

If you going to be a planets/moon only man then the advice will be completely different. The suggestion above is a good all rounder.

Ant

[Astro_Baby]

I live in a light polluted area ( Gatwick Airport and it doesnt get much worse than that ). I started out with an Explorer 130PM. It was a good little scope and gave some good views of Saturn, Jupiter and the moon. I never got to use it on deep sky objects because once I knew what I wanted I splashed out on a Sky-Watcher 200 on an HEQ5.

The 200s great but because its such a big beast and I live in a block of flats I find I use it less than the 130 which was quite compact.

Knowing what I know now I may have opted on the first scope to get a longer focal length and go for the longer 130 or perhaps the 150 with the 900mm length but I certainly wasn't unhappy with the 130PM which was a nice scope to get me started and would, had I kept it, have provided a lot of capaibilty.

Its always horses for courses - I kind of bought the 130 on the basis that I had to start with something and see what its up and downsides were to allow me to make a judgement on what I wanted later on.

That said theres plenty of happy 130PM owners out there and for a budget scope I think its hard to beat.

[axolotl]

I started out with the 130pm also and it is a great little telescope. Since then though I have used two slightly more expensive telescopes - a skymax 127 on a supatrak mount and a skywatcher 200P Dob

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200

These are both great scopes, that will give crisp, high magnification views of planets. The Dob in particular is also good for DSOs, even in a fairly light polluted environment (suburbs of cardiff) it is fairly easy to see the brighter nebulae (the ring, the dumbell, the orion nebula and globular clusters.