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OfflineCrackatoa
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Telescope questions?
    #26980466 - 10/11/20 07:26 PM (3 years, 5 months ago)

I wanna buy one for my kids. They're interested and I wanna help them continue down a science thinking path. I'm willing to spend $4-500 on something nice but I know nothing on them. Any help appreciated.


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OfflineLookingForward
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Crackatoa] * 1
    #26988059 - 10/16/20 08:12 AM (3 years, 5 months ago)

I would imagine something motorized would be the easiest for beginners. Celestron makes a bunch of them. Most are pretty expensive, but there are a few less pricey ones around $500. Im sure there are other brands too. Most of them are reflectors, so they are rather compact. Being motorized, once aligned, they will track objects in the sky and will automatically locate a ton of interesting celestial stuff too look at.


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InvisibleJean-Luc Picard
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: LookingForward]
    #26998568 - 10/22/20 07:32 PM (3 years, 5 months ago)

LookingForward is correct, a Go-To telescope package is what you want to look at.

There's a lot to selecting a good telescope that depends on the application. If you are hoping to take it to dark sky sites, or take it with you camping, then you'll want to get something like a small Refractor or Cassegrain that is compact and portable. However, if you are going to be doing some observations from your backyard, then you can consider a larger Newtonian or Dobsonian, that will have better light-gathering capabilities and higher magnifications.

When I was growing up, I saved up for a bit and got a 6" newtonian reflector, with a 25mm and a 9mm plossl eyepiece (the 25mm provides a wider field of view, and the 9mm provided a higher magnfication). This setup allowed me to view Jupiter and the four major moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula, and countless star clusters.

One final note, if you have a DSLR laying around, you can pick up an adapter for connecting your camera to the telescope, and with some free software (astrophotography tool) can take a set of 30 second to 2 minute exposures, stack them together in some more free software (deep sky stacker), and then use some more free software (Gimp) to edit the final stacked image to see way more than you would be able to with the naked eye. Just something to think about.


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OfflineLogicaL ChaosM
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Crackatoa]
    #27002535 - 10/25/20 10:45 AM (3 years, 5 months ago)

Lucky Kids! :grin: :awesome:

I second the motorized telescopes. I wanna get one someday. I own a Meade Polaris 90 (90mm lens aperture). It costs about $300. Really nice views with it but its completely manual (Equatorial mount) and somewhat difficult to adjust/understand how it works.

If you want your kids to learn how to use a manual version, then try out a manual telescope with an Equatorial mount. If u want some extra convenience, get the motorized type.

Theres three main trusted brands of telescopes that I know of that are Celestron, Orion and Meade. You want a lens aperture of at least 90mm for refractor telescopes, cause lets face it, everything in Space is VERY far away. When it comes to telescopes, bigger lens apertures are always better.

Heres an example of a gently-used Electronic 90mm Meade for $500

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Offlinebunsie
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: LogicaL Chaos] * 1
    #27004604 - 10/26/20 01:00 PM (3 years, 4 months ago)

I am not sure you'll find a telescope + Go-TO EQ mount for $500 over there. Here in Europe you'll be in $700+ at least.

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Crackatoa]
    #27028238 - 11/08/20 09:33 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Crackatoa said:
I wanna buy one for my kids. They're interested and I wanna help them continue down a science thinking path. I'm willing to spend $4-500 on something nice but I know nothing on them. Any help appreciated.



Small to mid-sized refractor with an altazimuth mount.  No need to bother with equatorial mounts and motors and stuff at this point.  Just get them something easy to set up.

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos]
    #27028261 - 11/08/20 09:46 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

LogicaL Chaos said:
Lucky Kids! :grin: :awesome:

I second the motorized telescopes. I wanna get one someday. I own a Meade Polaris 90 (90mm lens aperture). It costs about $300. Really nice views with it but its completely manual (Equatorial mount) and somewhat difficult to adjust/understand how it works.

If you want your kids to learn how to use a manual version, then try out a manual telescope with an Equatorial mount. If u want some extra convenience, get the motorized type.

Theres three main trusted brands of telescopes that I know of that are Celestron, Orion and Meade. You want a lens aperture of at least 90mm for refractor telescopes, cause lets face it, everything in Space is VERY far away. When it comes to telescopes, bigger lens apertures are always better.



What's giving you trouble with the equatorial mount?  As long as it's aligned properly you shouldn't have an issue tracking stuff.

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OfflineLogicaL ChaosM
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos]
    #27028413 - 11/08/20 11:10 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Its just the manual adjusting is sometimes annoying as the Earth rotates at the quick speed it does. It would really nice to have a motorized mount to track what Im looking at.

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: LogicaL Chaos] * 1
    #27028472 - 11/08/20 11:48 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

LogicaL Chaos said:
Its just the manual adjusting is sometimes annoying as the Earth rotates at the quick speed it does. It would really nice to have a motorized mount to track what Im looking at.



It only moves 15 degrees per hour and your target should only be drifting out of frame about the RA axis.  If you have to adjust the declination too then you just need a better alignment.


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Offlinebunsie
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos] * 1
    #27029878 - 11/09/20 09:37 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

If your object is drifting out of view quickly then your mount is not polar aligned well.

You can polar align using several techniques
Drift align (When you don't have a view of Polaris)
Use a polar scope to align the mount with Polaris (You need to have a view of polaris and a polarscope for this)

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: bunsie] * 1
    #27030566 - 11/09/20 05:54 PM (3 years, 4 months ago)

For casual observation?  You can more or less just eyeball Polaris into the center of your field of view.  Not nearly good enough if you want to do long exposures and stuff but even for star hopping it works well enough.  Helps if you have a compass and a pair of binoculars.

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Offlinebunsie
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos] * 1
    #27030975 - 11/10/20 01:12 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

The longer the focal length of the scope, the less you can eyeball the polar alignment. The object will drift out of frame quite quickly, especially long focal length + short mm eye pieces.
360mm scope and 750mm scope for observing is quite the difference.

Edited by bunsie (11/10/20 01:13 AM)

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: bunsie]
    #27031234 - 11/10/20 08:39 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

You can't really eyeball an actual polar alignment at all.  Even getting Polaris dead center wouldn't be an actual polar alignment.  This seems to work well enough for casual stargazing though.  Looking at bright stuff in Orion isn't really a high precision/accuracy game.

I know that what I'm talking about is far from perfect.  People do easy things more often than difficult ones though and they'll have an easier time finding a better technique than they'll have trying to blast their way through one that's more difficult for whatever reason (monetary or otherwise).  That's part of the reason why I told OP to get a cheaper telescope with an altazimuth mount.  His kids are going to get way more out of being able to just look at random shit than they are learning about polar coordinates.

Edited by chibiabos (11/10/20 07:46 PM)

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OfflineIce9
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos]
    #27036236 - 11/13/20 01:28 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

Do they sell long focal distance refracting telescopes that are motorized, I only see short ones and want an upgrade to my old hand 80mm one. Suggestions welcome, consider budget not to ge a factor.


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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Brenard Shaw

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Ice9] * 1
    #27038062 - 11/14/20 01:15 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

The telescope isn't motorized.  The mount is.

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Offlinebunsie
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos]
    #27038191 - 11/14/20 04:53 AM (3 years, 4 months ago)

What kind of scope do you have Chibiabos?
Are you into astrophotography or into observing?

I agree, getting a EQ + Go-TO will be too much for kids.

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: bunsie] * 1
    #27038807 - 11/14/20 01:41 PM (3 years, 4 months ago)

8" reflector from Orion.  Haven't gotten a good chance to use it lately though.  I wanted to do some serious amateur surveying but never had the money to set myself up for it and was in a really shitty, toxic environment that honestly boggles the mind.

That being said it's actually pretty nice, even with the cheaper GEM that came with it.  It's definitely an improvement over the cheap Tasco thing with the focuser that doesn't stay put and the warped-as-shit wooden GEM that was pretty much incapable of precision.  It wasn't terrible, but using it was kind of like tuning a violin.

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OfflineIce9
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: chibiabos] * 1
    #27119502 - 01/01/21 12:08 AM (3 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

chibiabos said:
The telescope isn't motorized.  The mount is.




Yeah I have i think a 450mm reflector(going on that is longer than a meter but definitely not 2 meters and multiple eye eye pieces).  Do they make motorized mounts for those, or is better just buy mount plus scope together.  This a future purchase for me so I'm willing to take the time and learn understand how to use it. I live in a city now and the light pollution is awful... I would have travel some distance 150+miles to get to a place with acceptable levels of light pollution.


--------------------
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Brenard Shaw

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Offlinechibiabos
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Ice9]
    #27124186 - 01/03/21 03:25 PM (3 years, 2 months ago)

I'm not really an expert.  You'd be better off asking on an astronomy forum, but I'd think that it basically just boils down to what sort of load the mount and the motors can actually bear and how balanced the whole thing is going to be.  :justdontknow:

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InvisibleJean-Luc Picard
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Re: Telescope questions? [Re: Ice9]
    #27144695 - 01/12/21 09:09 PM (3 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Ice9 said:
Do they sell long focal distance refracting telescopes that are motorized, I only see short ones and want an upgrade to my old hand 80mm one. Suggestions welcome, consider budget not to ge a factor.




They sell refractors with focal lengths close to 1 meter on mainstream sites like OPT and High Point Scientifics, but those are going to run over 10k USD.

Quote:

Ice9 said:
Quote:

chibiabos said:
The telescope isn't motorized.  The mount is.




Yeah I have i think a 450mm reflector(going on that is longer than a meter but definitely not 2 meters and multiple eye eye pieces).  Do they make motorized mounts for those, or is better just buy mount plus scope together.  This a future purchase for me so I'm willing to take the time and learn understand how to use it. I live in a city now and the light pollution is awful... I would have travel some distance 150+miles to get to a place with acceptable levels of light pollution.




I'm not sure I understand, do you have a reflector with a 450mm aperature, or 450mm focal length? I think you are referring to the focal length, as the aperature would have you sitting at 16-18" scope diameter, which usually would require some kind of 50k USD mount to get tracking without field rotatiom. A reflector with 450mm focal length will put you in the 4-5" aperature for a newtonian design, which they certainly sell EQ mounts that will easily accommodate your scope.

The main thing to keep in mind is that you'll need mounting rings that are
  • compatible with the mount (usually a vixen or losmandy style dovetail)
  • has the right diameter to match the OD of your telescopes optical tube.
.

For general visual astronomy, you don't need to go overboard on the mount. Make sure that the telescope and any accessories are within the payload capacity of the mount. Make sure that the mount includes a polar scope, preferably with an LED-lit reticle. A go-to is not a necessity with decent alignment, but makes life a lot simpler by partially correcting for polar alignment error and simplifying finding your target.

For astrophotography, prepare to invest in some extra equipment. The optimal mount will have a payload capacity roughly 2x the mass of your scope and gear. A go-to mount should be considered a requirement, as should a guide scope and guide camera for autoguiding and polar alignment. Your scope choices should also focus on apochromatic refractors (usually a triplet or quadruplet petzval), and general astrographs if you are shopping outside of the refractory category. You should also plan on getting used to have a laptop around for interfacing with all of the equipment and optimizing/automating image capturing.

And then there's camera selection and post processing your photos......


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The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you - NDT

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