Telescope Help Please!!!!

I want to buy a telescope that i can actually look at things not just a magnified vision....how much would i be looking at (australian dollar) and whats the furthest thing i could see with the model... please help me

No matter what kind of telescope you buy everything will be magnified. With the exception of going to a distant planet or star there is no workaround to this.

To equate, your question is akin to asking to see bacteria without the aid of a microscope.

reply to post by links234


no what im asking is to be able to see clearly the moon or planets as you said!

So can you help me or just be a smart ass

My friend,

Originally posted by pixiekaram
reply to post by links234

 

no what im asking is to be able to see clearly the moon or planets as you said!

So can you help me or just be a smart ass

I dont think he is being a smart ass because I got the same impression from your post

I use the Celestron Nexstar 11 45LT which enables me to see the moons of Jupiter with ease, and even the rings of Saturn with the appropriate eye piece

I hope this helps and I'm sure others will be along to give a recomendation

ETA : With this scope I'm able to hook it up to the PC via USB and record video and take pictures live, in HD too, just haven't got round to hooking it up yet

Be safe be well,

Spiro

links IS right though; a telescope MAGNIFIES what you're looking at. So what you're saying makes no sense.

buy this and you can see everything you ever wanted

www.amazon.com...

A telescope is only as good as the quality of its mirror // lense.

You have three types:

Refractor: - uses lenses to form the image.



Reflector: - Uses mirrors to form the image.



And catadioptric: Uses both lense and mirror:



Each type has its perks, whether size, price or quality, for example, I have an 8 inch reflector, which is great for planets galaxies, nebulas etc, but its a pain in the arse to move about due to its size / length.

Here are my tips:

chose a known brand, don't buy a cheapy or you will get nowhere, think Meade, Celestron etc, AVOID Tasco

Think size, reflectors are cheap, good image but bulky, refractors are expensive, bulky but do work well and are easier maintained, catadioptric (Schmidt-Cassegrain, Maksutov-Cassegrain etc) are small, compact, great image quality but can be expensive.

Mount: Alt-Azimuth Mount - great all rounder, especially motor drive. Equatorial Mount - absolute must for photography, its easier to follow a star / planets motion to the earth.

Eyepieces: Depends what you intend to do with your new scope, you will want a few different eyepieces for different things, and a Barlow lens which sits in between the main lense and the scope and provides double // triple the magnification. 25mm or 40mm focal length are best suited for deep space, star or nebulas. For the moon and planets, between 4mm and 18mm are best.

look into solar / lunar and light pollution filters.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Forgot to say, the bigger the aperture (lense // mirror) the better.

edit on 14/12/10 by woogleuk because: (no reason given)

My friend,

reply to post by woogleuk


Brilliant reply indeed

Neighbour

Be safe be well

Spiro

reply to post by woogleuk


That was some good advice

I have a Celestron Powerseeker 114 EQ, it came with a barlow lens and a couple of other lenses, but alas I have no idea how to set it up. It came with instructions that consisted of half a page that had a diagram on it and three sentences, very unhelpful. I have it on its tripod and the necessary bits are all in place, but it's the settings on those dial thingy's I haven't a clue about.

HELPPP???

reply to post by doobydoll


do you mean on the mount?

i'll guide you to some places if it will help, assuming thats what you mean.

setting up

Manual (PDF)

How do I use the setting circles on my Celestron German equatorial mount?


Sorry I can't be much more help, there are lots of different mounts out there

reply to post by woogleuk


Yes those two on the mount like discs with numbers on, one horizontal and the other vertical.

Thanks for the links - SMASHIN job

Can't wait to have a go

I have a 90mm refractor from staroptics cost $300 it is good,

Have a look here, all prices are in AUD.
I can recommend getting a Skywatcher as a first scope as they can be very affordable.
I guess it depends on how much you are looking to spend.
www.myastroshop.com.au...

And doobydoll, maybe try an astronomy forum. People can be real helpful and guide you through each stage and any problems that come up.

Strictly speaking, a prime focus camera system doesn't involve magnification as the light is simply allowed to fall directly on the CCD chip without being magnified by any eyepiece. The resulting image you see is ultimately "magnified" by the fact that a CCD's individual pixel wells are micrometers in size but appear much larger when displayed on a screen as pixels. Ultimately the "magnification" your eye sees depends on how large the final display size of the pixels are and how far you're standing from the screen. The end result is still that you see something that is incredibly tiny in a much larger way, but technically speaking magnification becomes a meaningless term and is replaced by things like the size of the field of view (X number of arcminutes).

The bare bones minimum telescopic camera system I picked out yesterday on another thread would cost about 687 AUD, so unfortunately it's not cheap per se, but it need not be ridiculously expensive either. If you were to go that route it has quite a learning curve though and I would recommend starting off with a simple and cheap Dobsonian to learn the skies with. Something like this would do nicely for about half the price of a small camera-based system:
www.ozscopes.com.au...

reply to post by Spiro


thank you this is the type of answer im looking for... how good is the pictures and the view (sorry I have never done astronomy so this is why i do not know how to ask) thanks once again i will be looking into how much they are worth

Pix

would this be any good Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ and what would i be able to view through it....

reply to post by pixiekaram


To give you an idea of what you can see through telescopes like this here is a vid of what you can see through a Celestron nexstar 4 se which costs about $900Au new I believe. Buy second-hand and you will get more for your money

Youtube has videos like this made with quite a few different telescopes that you could check out

reply to post by pixiekaram


Here is a list of videos taken with a 130EQ
youtube

I ended up buying the Celestron Astromaster 130eq for $255au, getting it next week any advice, tips, general knowledge/maintenance for this model.

Any advice ot tips for amateur astronomy would be great
Thanks

Pix