Reading and appropriate budget

[darcy]

Hi there,

I am trying to decide which telescope to buy for my husband's 40th birthday. I was wondering if you could recommend some reading for me in order to understand this field a bit better so that I make a good purchase.

I know nothing about telescopes, nor does my husband at the moment. He owns a basic Celestron machine that points at stars and tells him what he is seeing. He is loving this gadget and I know he'd like to do more. We view the stars from the desert of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and from Southern Bohemia in the Czech republic, countryside with very low density of population.

At the moment I don't understand the difference between the various

types of telescope, or the criteria by which I should be chosing.

Of course if there are some broad recommendations that could be made for me, I would appreciate this too. My budget is up to 2,000 pounds. Is this a good budget? Is there a sum I should be aiming to spend to avoid wasting money on too high-tech equipment but at the same time buying something that can deliver good learning

to my husband and last a lifetime?

Many thanks in advance for any information you might be able to send. Best regards,

Darcy

[ollypenrice]

Two thousand pounds is a good budget, yes, and will buy you an excellent instrument.

First question is, will it have to be portable? If so, by what means of transport?

Second question, do you think your husband would want to branch into astrophotography or stick with visual observing? For photography a lot of the budget has to go into the mounting. For visual observing it doesn't so you can have a BIG scope whch will show a lot more. (But then see my first paragraph...)

Olly