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A post I put on IrishAstronomy - A question on Telescope

  • 28-03-2005 12:38am
    #1
    hamster
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,766 ✭✭✭


    I put this post on IrishAstronomy.ie but I love to hear from any boarders.ie. :)

    Hi Everybody,
    I really only started my Astronomy interest in a specific guided fashion last November. All my life it was... "oh thats nice" and move on. I was always interested in space events and the like but I viewed it from the mass-media perspective and likewise moved onto to the next "channel" if you know what I mean. Years ago I used Redshift 1 & 2 but I never successfully clicked with it. Likewise I have used Celestia for years (and it's earlier prototype).

    Anyway last November I pick up a copy of Starry Night 4.5 (PCPro) and tried it out and gradually this encouraged me to start picking out the constellations and individual stars - Orion, Ursa Majoris and so on. From there I got to learn about the gradual changes over the nights. This fact makes it so exciting to me and makes it feel so alive like the seasons. By January/February I was pretty comfortable sky hopping around the sky via naked eye viewing. I guess I'm familar with probably 10-12 constellations now.
    Then the ISS got my attention in late January and now is an event to look forward. Even got my father hooked onto it via a combination of Satscope and Starry night (he is always updating the satellite .dat files , I missed the
    Machholz comet excitement around the same time but I did try to see it. :) Then I heard about the comet showers and the times in the year that they occur. I look forward to this now that I know about them (have yet to start on this).
    During this month I bought myself a decent pair of 10x50 binoculars from Astronomy Ireland for 85 euro. The brand is prismatic - I assume these are ok? - I had a scratched old pair of tasco's lying around. With a new adapter I now use this with a steady tripod at my home base (Waterford - nice dark rural skies - can see mag 5-5.5 stars with my glass aided eyesight here) and use the binos in Artane Dublin (Job base).
    Magazine support is Astronomy Ireland's for one year. I have ordered Norton's Star Atlas and Nightwatch. I also came across CloudyNight's forums - which is quite good. The binos really have extended the skies for me - The pleaides look lovely, Orion looks more detailed at it's star points. Recent wonders for me have been the Large Beehive cluster in Cancer. This has suddenly alerted me to all those Messier objects which seemed inaccessible. How do you pronoun that? The fact I can see 3-4 Jupiter's moons Callisto, Ganymede, Io (thanks Celestia!) and watch them change every night in a mere binoculars and see them in an amazing 45 deg plane blows my mind to mush! wow! I have been enjoying watching Jupiter come up earlier every night since waiting at 2am back in January. Saturn is a great addition in Gemini with Castor and Pollux. The starry night feels like a group of well known local regulars! :)
    I guess I better get to the point. :wink: I have been looking at the next natural step... a telescope. I never had one - unless I include my father's cheap, nasty, plastic, wobbly, MegaXrated power wonder... a Bushnell 450x. It was so bad it put me right off looking at it ever again years ago.
    I'm looking for a starter telescope. I don't want to spend that much initially but understand I need to buy a good one to start off with and that I can add to or enhance in months/years to come. I have pondered the pros and cons of reflectors and refractors and I feel that I should go for a reflector - good price ratio, lighting and no color problems that a refractor has.I have my eye on a C6N - I believe this would a good starter telescope.
    I'm looking at it from here:
    http://www.greenwich-observatory.co.uk/acatalog/Starter_Scopes.html
    The price range is about right for me. I don't want to buy something too expensive as a starter. Has anyone had this telescope or what thoughts are on it? Would I better to get a few accesories with it (like a barlow lens) or just get used to it first. I plan to get one in June. I wish to view planets and deep sky objects - a bit of both really.
    I apologise if this thread went on too long but I thought I'd give you a bit of background.


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