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Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/27/2007 10:35:59 PM

popeye1250

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I've been getting more and more interested in Astronomy over the last few years and I'm thinking about getting a telescope.
I've seen them in stores, all different kinds but I don't know anything about them.
My Tufts U. scientist buddy says they have ones that are computer controlled and once programmed will go to whatever star or planet you want.
Anyone in here have any good info?

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/27/2007 11:14:53 PM

DomKen

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The computer controlled ones are real nice for the beginner who may have trouble translating written coordinates into telescope alignment.

The Greenwich observatory website has a nice intro to telescopes here:
http://www.greenwich-observatory.co.uk/beginners.html

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/27/2007 11:47:13 PM

Owner59

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Get the expencive one.

And it`s not for looking at the neighbors...

< Message edited by Owner59 -- 9/27/2007 11:48:15 PM >

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 1:06:11 AM

Rule

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Go to your local astronomy club. They can give you advice and usually they will even help you to make your own telescope; they nearly always have making telescopes courses.

Lunar telescopy is the most rewarding. You will also be able to see details on the surfaces of the near planets and their moons. And then there are the nebulae and galaxies.

Stars will always be just stars, mere points on the sky; you will see just more of them in any part of the sky - provided that you have clear, dark skies.

Then there are asteroids and comets, of course.

Also there are various kinds of variable stars that you may want to observe. (There is a society for variable star observers.)

Eventually you will start time lapse photography and with the right equipment your results may surpass professional astronomy results of anything before the seventies.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 1:16:51 AM

seeksfemslave

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Spectacular views of the Moon can be obtained with a decent pair of Binoculars.
I also watched Venus transit the Sun with mine. NOT directly, I focussed the Sun's light on to some white cardboard. Not much really but I did see it.

The most disappointing astronomical event I have watched was Halley's Comet. Hardly visible at all. Then a few years later that really bright comet became visible.

Telescopes ? I cant help at all lol

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 1:52:32 AM

Real0ne

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The only accessory that I would want would be auto tracking to cancel the earths rotation. If you get something about mmm say 600 power and up you will have lots of fun with it.

You can grind your own lens also if you want to really get into it but I would send it out to get it coated and you can get the glass and grinding kits from edmund scientific if they are still in biz. (got any buddies in the cnc biz?)

If you want to see things like saturn with relative brightness i would go with a 6+ inch reflector.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 3:48:01 AM

ChicagoSwitchMal

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The computer conrolled ones are awesome! They take a bit of calibrating but once they are it's amazing. The program Starry Nights http://www.starrynightstore.com/ is the best IMO for the backyard astronomer. You might want to check the devices it will control while selecting your telescope to be sure it will work with it. With this program you can click on something and the telescope moves right to it without a bunch of work. It automatically tracks it so you can take a break and when you look back down your target is still there. I had all this set up at one point but my telescope just got old and the gears weren't reliable anymore. I'm also in a big city so what I can see is limited anyway. But it was cool when I had it going :)

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 8:23:55 AM

Sanity

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They're a lot better if you can get far away from the city lights, for sure. The planets are amazing through a good telescope. The moon is right in your lap, you almost feel like you can touch it. If I were going to buy a new telescope I'd get a large reflector telescope with several eyepieces varying from wide angle to extreme power. The programmable kind sounds nice, but I've never tried one out. It can be difficult to track different objects because they move so much faster than you would ever guess they do before you have that first look.

Yeah, it's fun and worthwhile, and just studying astronomy and physics is rewarding. Combine the science with the telescope and you will get a lot to think about.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 10:48:09 AM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sanity

They're a lot better if you can get far away from the city lights, for sure. The planets are amazing through a good telescope. The moon is right in your lap, you almost feel like you can touch it. If I were going to buy a new telescope I'd get a large reflector telescope with several eyepieces varying from wide angle to extreme power. The programmable kind sounds nice, but I've never tried one out. It can be difficult to track different objects because they move so much faster than you would ever guess they do before you have that first look.

I've got a reasonably cheap scope (130mm reflector) with both the little attached keypad and a USB port. For most stuff the keypad works fine just look up the object you want and hit enter. The scope finds it and tracks it. Calibrating is easy if you don't change viewing sites much.

For finding more esoteric stuff I hook the scope to my laptop and start up the astronomy program I DL'd. I got a pretty decent shot of one of the shuttles using it.

If you are buying a scope I highly recommend buying one that mates to whatever camera you already own, most work fine with standard 35mm cameras but check, as well as both the built in computer control as well as a USB port for hooking to your computer.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 2:16:49 PM

popeye1250

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Yeah, I did some reading and the programable feature keeps the target in sight by moving the telescope automatically.
They also mentioned a "go to" feature, I guess you just punch in whichever celestial body you want to look at and the computer moves the lens to pick it up.
I was in Navigation when I was in the Navy and "shot stars" with a Sextant and I'm familiar with Navigation coordinates so Astralogical coordinates shouldn't be too bad.
I was looking at one scope for about $1,600 that will "look into the deep universe and galaxys."
But, it looks like you can get a very nice telescope for about $400-$600.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 4:13:38 PM

philosophy

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..have fun with it Popeye.......it's a hobby i've always fancied too but haven't been able to get into seriously because of living too close to light pollution hot spots.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 5:03:26 PM

Zensee

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How's the kitten doing, BTW?

Z.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 6:17:34 PM

popeye1250

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Zensee, the kitten is doing good, he eats 3 times what Bubba eats!
But, he growls like a dog when he's going after something and runs and jumps halfway up the doorjam.
Philosophy, it's not too bad around here, plus I can go down to the beach at night.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/28/2007 11:14:46 PM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

..have fun with it Popeye.......it's a hobby i've always fancied too but haven't been able to get into seriously because of living too close to light pollution hot spots.

I live in Chicago and it can be very hard to find a good spot to skywatch from. My present apartment building is too low for the roof to be high enough to get away from the light and while the beach is nearby it isn't a place I consider safe for one person with a laptop, telescope and 35mm camera to focus on something other than his surroundings. Periodically the planetarium downtown has skywatching nights where I'll go down and set up and there are a lot of people around but mostly I go up to a friend's family's vacation house up in Wisconsin. Out on the deck at night the light pollution isn't too bad and I can see most anything the guide books say my scope should be able to see.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/29/2007 5:21:26 AM

Sanity

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

..have fun with it Popeye.......it's a hobby i've always fancied too but haven't been able to get into seriously because of living too close to light pollution hot spots.

I live in Chicago and it can be very hard to find a good spot to skywatch from. My present apartment building is too low for the roof to be high enough to get away from the light and while the beach is nearby it isn't a place I consider safe for one person with a laptop, telescope and 35mm camera to focus on something other than his surroundings. Periodically the planetarium downtown has skywatching nights where I'll go down and set up and there are a lot of people around but mostly I go up to a friend's family's vacation house up in Wisconsin. Out on the deck at night the light pollution isn't too bad and I can see most anything the guide books say my scope should be able to see.

Certain big city types can't understand it, but there are some great advantages to living in Idaho...

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 9/29/2007 7:05:02 AM

popeye1250

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Sanity, that's true.
When I lived in the mountains in New Hampshire I had a huge back yard and we could see the stars with no problem.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 12/30/2007 7:44:59 PM

Sanity

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So, popeye - did Santa bring you that telescope you've been wanting?

If so, what kind did he bring you. And have you been using it?

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 12/31/2007 1:43:56 AM

farglebargle

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Planetarium Software. Slightly o/t.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 12/31/2007 9:36:09 AM

sub4hire

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Doug bought me a Meade telescope for Christmas. Its the computerized one. Even as a teenager in astrology class I had problems mapping the stars.

Backpack observatory is what he got me. Seems to work well but I'm also no expert. Whenever I wanted to see something I headed for the observatory in Los Angeles.
What you could see in California pales by comparison to what you can see here.

Only downside to this telescope is it runs off of 6aa batteries. Although with the computer software....you really don't even need the telescope at all.

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RE: Anyone know about Telescopes? - 12/31/2007 10:24:05 AM

Kumasan2

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Keep in mind that many of the objects that you'll view with the telescope will be very diffuse and dim. The pictures that you see online of amazing and colorful nebulae are both very long exposures and often false color enhanced. That being said, you can still see some amazing objects out there. I recommend starting with the Messier objects which were catalogued by Charles Messier in the 18th Century. You'll quickly find some that become instant favorites, my own being a relatively uninspiring M44, The Beehive, an open cluster in Cancer. (It was the first I found all on my own.) Find a pretty good starting point here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects which also has a couple of good links at the end. Many people who get into the hobby don't realize that not everything up there looks like it was taken with the Hubble and they get very discouraged. Which can lead to good telescope deals for poor astronomers.

The computer controlled software is nice to have but there's also a great challenge in finding objects with only a map. Getting a good set of sky atlases (I've used Wil Tirion's Cambridge Star Atlas for years) will enable you to really learn the night sky in depth and to find things as you're tooling around with your scope. Also, getting a copy of a field guide like Peterson's Field Guide to the Stars and Planets will help a lot with constellation names and locations and gives a lot of good info.

Finding and joining a local astronomy club will also put you in touch with some very knowledgeable people who really are passionate about astronomy. I've been involved with an astronomy club for 23 years now and I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had there for anything. Of course, there's a link for that, too: http://www.astronomyclubs.com/

Best of luck to you in this... It's a great hobby that will make you smile, pull your hair out, and poor all at the same time and you'll always come back for more!

(I have no affiliation with any of the above named sites, books, or anything else. Just an experienced and happy customer!)

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