What telescope do you have?

NocturnalDonkey

When I was younger I had a Tasco refractor, it had 60mm lens and it came with 3 eyepieces. Magnification from 40x up to 550x i think. Anything over 250x was blury, but it was a decent beginner scope for a kid.

Back in 1994, I got a Orion 250mm Newtonian Reflector. My dad had it shipped over from the UK, they only had Dobsonian telescopes from Astronomy Ireland. Well ones that we could afford. I used to use it all the time when i first got it, I was in college at the time so I didn't have to worry about getting up early the next morning. Nowadays I don't get to use it all that often. Its still at my parents house, whereas I have been living in apartments for the last few years.

I'll be moving into my own house in the next few months, hopefully I'll have good views from the back garden and I can rekindle my night sky viewing.

So what telescope have you had in the past, and at present?

Seanie M

Santa brought me a 3" Tasco reflector when I was 10 or 11. It was actually pretty good. I got to see the Orion nebula for the first time, Jupiter with its moons, great views of the Moon, and things like that.
Then in '96 I built an 8" reflector as my construction studies project in school for the leaving cert. Took me a year to build, and it looked bad if you were a devout telescopic observer, but it worked! I saw the rings of Saturn clearly for this first time with this instrument. I am rebuilding it now to make it last for a long time yet.
I also got one of those Lidl 70mm refractors last December. Have to say, it was exceptional value for a small equatorial at €65! I can see the shape of Saturn in it, Jupiter with a band or 2, the moon is great, and relativley large clusters and nebulae are pretty good. If Lidl bring it back again, I'd recommend it to anyone.

By the way Donkey, good show not buying from Astronomy and Space. As you put it, all you could afford was a moderately sized Dobo. It is usually the same price to buy a larger scope abroad and pay the shipping and tax to Ireland. Well worth the venture - if you have the money!

Seanie.

albertw

Started with 7x50's. Borrowed a 3" reflector and repaired it until it was approaching something useable.

Now:
10" LXD55 SN
4" Skywatcher Mak
90mm Lidl refractor
10x50 lidl binoculars

and I still have the trusty 7x50's :-)

For everything else there is http://www.sdss.org/

Cheers,
~Al

Tea drinker

Started with a Tasco 60 mm terrestrial scope, it's about 20 years old now,
still working fine, or at least as fine as ever!

Bought a 4.5 newtonian last week.... for 50 euro's!
Found it in the Die and Sell, seems to be a growing number of scopes
for sale in there.
Ok it's still a tasco, but optics are good condition, after a good cleaning.
Some good resources on web for this, I didn't pick up any scratches,
and mirrors is nice and shiny. (looked like it was near a deep fat fryer before!)

Anyway,
Looking forward to remembering my way around the sky.
Martin

Flukey

I have a Celestron 70 EQ at present, which I have for a few years now. It does the job. I can get good views of the moon with it. I took this using it and my digital camera:



At some stage I'd like to get something new with more power to do some deep sky stuff and to have a really good look at the planets.

Kersh

Started with a 3 inch spotting scope when I was 13. Got a 4 1/2 inch Tasco reflector when I was 14. Had too many 'young things' to be doing, so I lost a bit of interest.In January I went out and bought a 60mm tasco refractor for 30 euro on buy and sell to see if my interest was still there, and it was, so I bought a celestron nexstar 114gt.
I also have a Canon EOS 500 to try a bit of photography.

albertw

Originally posted by Flukey
I took this using it and my digital camera

Try taking several shots and using registax to stack them. Its mainly used for webcams but is perfectly capable of stacking several jpegs as well, and even a couple more images will improve the sharpness a lot.

http://aberrator.astronomy.net/registax/

Cheers,
~Al

halenger

I've a Firstscope 80EQ and a WideView 80. Neither of which I put to much good use.

Da Moon <- that's the best photo I've managed so far. That's with my WideView 80 (20mm plossl) and a Minolta S414 Digital Camera. Only editing was a slight brightening. Shot would've been better except I shot it through my bedroom window and had no tripod handy! I was still extremely pleased with how it came out.

Flukey

That was good. It is great to see them come out like that. They often are better than you expect. Here are some I took and have posted on
my Astronomy Page.

halenger

Flukey wrote:

Here are some I took and have posted on
my Astronomy Page.

Do you not use Astro-Solar filter? As far as I know that can be terribly harmful to the lenses in your scope. Causing them to crack etc.

I'm sure others know better. Only going on what I've been told.

albertw

halenger wrote:

Do you not use Astro-Solar filter? As far as I know that can be terribly harmful to the lenses in your scope. Causing them to crack etc.

I'm sure others know better. Only going on what I've been told.

Its not a really a problem for a scope like that. A good quality small telescope with metal and glass parts can handle the projection method. Using a larger telescope will generate a lot more heat and do bad things to the inside of a telescope, scorching glass, warping tubes... Similarly using a very cheap scope with plasic parts is a bad idea since they can easily melt.

Using Baader film over the primary has the added benefit of reflecting most of the suns heat also so the scope will be undamaged. Its worth trying for the sake of EUR25[1] for an A4 sheet.

Cheers,
~Al

[1] prince including shipping from the UK.

Flukey

That was the only time I have used my telescope for viewing the sun. As you will remember, it wasn't a particularly clear day in Dublin. I nearly wasn't going to bother setting up at all, but I took the chance and it paid off. It cleared a bit better, though still hazy, for the last 40 minutes or so, when I got all that.