new telescope

[saturn88]

hi, can someone help please! i need a telescope for christmas what do you think of the meade range its pooring down here and im missing the moon :crybaby: .

[timetraveller]

Hello saturn 88

In general terms the Mead range are pretty good scopes, But as has been pointed out in numerous previous posts choosing a scope is a matter of compromise and truly understanding just what you really want to do within your hobby. No one scope is capable of doing it all to perfection,

Refractors are brilliant for planetary work ans splitting double stars because of their pin sharp focusing and ability to pull out hi contrast , but to get a reasonable size one is going to cost you.

Remembering the golden rule that the bigger the aperture the greater the light gathering power and that the more light you can capture the more you can see so if its deep space objects like galaxies and nebulae then you would be better off with either a Newtonian or a SCT .

in addition to this you need to be clear whether storage space ,portability and ease of use are important to you as this will decide the ultimate size and type of mount your going to need along with whether or not your going to get involved in astrophotography.because that will require heavy duty very stable mounts that can track accurately.

so as you can see your choice is going to be a balancing act and a compromise of what you want to do against cost and size

Before you make a final decision you would be well advised to ask as many people as you can what type of scopes they have and there good and bad points and if possible go and have a look and a play with some different ones so that you get a feel for how they work and what they can do.

Personally I own a skywatcher P200 which is an 8" newt, for its cost has superb quality of both build and optics

hope you find the right scope for you

best wishes and happy Christmas Pete

[Doc]

I have a Meade Lightbridge dob and the optics are great. The build quality I would give 6/10.

The older Meade's are not renowned for build quality. The new 5000 series APO's I've heard are excellent.

For a starter scope I would say either.

Skywatcher skyliner 200p

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

or

Skywatcher 130p

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=SW130PSupaTrakAUTO

Hope it helps

[proflight2000]

As mentioned, Meades are good scopes, my only input is that you pay for all the electrics and stuff, i.e. where for instance you could grab a 6 inch for many many hundreds of pounds, you can grab a larger scope for half the price. Just worth thinking about in relation to seeing wise and cost.

[saturn88]

hi, can someone help please! i need a telescope for christmas what do you think of the meade range its pooring down here and im missing the moon :crybaby: .

thanks for the feed back guys!! so did anyone see the moon last night?

[Astro_Baby]

Predictably it was cloudy and raining here, same as it always is as soon as anything interesting is going on up there :crybaby: