Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: omega3000 on 08 January 2014, 23:07:33
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Is that what you call people who watch the stars at night ;D :-\ Anyway could someone give advice on what the best telescope to buy for a beginner , i'd like a decent powerful lens ... :-\ Always been interested in stars and planets ect and been keenly watching the Stargazing Live on the box .. Fascinating stuff :y
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http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/danubia-orion-200-newton-reflector-astro-telescope-r12dh (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/danubia-orion-200-newton-reflector-astro-telescope-r12dh)
I saw one on display in Maplins the other day - not sure this was exact model though.
Probably not beginner but they have others. The one in link looks quite serious.
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http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/celestron-astromaster-70az-refractor-a02na (http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/celestron-astromaster-70az-refractor-a02na)
This is one of their deals of the day.
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Depends what you want to observe, and what your budget is, really. You might be better off finding a local astronomy club and popping along for a demo and some advice first.
A newtonian reflector of the type shown in pscocoa's first link is probably the best buy for the beginner. You get a decent amount of both aperture size and magnification for your money, meaning it has decent power to collect light from dim objects and probably enough magnification for a beginner. I bought a 114mm x1000mm job for Mrs. KW a couple of years back, for much less than the Maplin one (which appears to be 200mm, so admittedly a bit more aperture).
Whatever you get will need pretty painstaking setup of the mount to get it aiming where you want to be. Don't be too swayed by electronic mounts with thousands of objects already in the database. You still need to set it up very accurately before it'll point itself at the right bit of sky.
Also.. understand that this won't give you stunning views of the crab nebula and mountains on Mars, etc. Most items just become larger blobs than they are by the naked eye. ;) The most fun I've had has been examining the surface of the moon, which is quite impressive through a relatively low budget Newtonian reflector.
Oh, and get a decent coat, too. ::)
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Got my son one of these from santa couple of years ago, A celestron nextstar slt 102.
There great for looking at things like the moon, but think they work best when you use a camera too and start stacking photo,s like the bottom pic he done :y
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70807181/moon1.jpg)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70807181/m42%20nebula.JPG)