Star Gazing...

[PBMAX]

Hey, does any one out here have a favorite telescope..?My Uncle has one I can barrow once I get settled in .(hopefully by this fall) It's a Meade,one of those compact deals..It has a realy clear image for its size to me, but then I no nada...about scopes...I like the fact that it can also be a spotting scope and can be hooked to a computer and will track what ever you lock it on to (once you aling it with the N)...Have looked at the moon recently it with it Bright clear image.I forget the power of the eye piece...He wants a doubler (2X multiplier)...I asked him if it would effect the image quality.He dosn't know...I know that with camera lenses it will after a certain piont start to fuzz the outer area of the lenseand can make the image grainy...Any one know if will do this to scopes???After adding up the cost of some of the scopes with accessories I think i'll just barrow his and spend the $$$ on piece of tractor eqiupment for now...Or add it to the down payment...More than anything I'm just curious....

Lil' Paul

Laziness is the Father of invention.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[MChalkley]

I've got a 10" Meade LX200. I think Meade's optical quality is a little better than Celestron, the major competitor. The computer control used to be heads and shoulders better, but I don't know how they compare these days - I've been told they're about neck and neck.

The doublers are usually called barlow lenses, if I remember correctly - I haven't done much amateur astronomy in the last 5 years or so. They do have a fairly major effect on optical clarity. Better would be another eyepiece. If he's only got one eyepiece now, the barlow wouldn't make sense, because a second eyepiece of half the focal length of his existing one would accomplish the same thing with much better results. Where barlows come in handy are when you have a number of eyepieces and it can be used to double the power (halve the focal length) of all of them.

I'd be curious of why he wants to double the power of what he's got now, though. With the poor 'seeing' conditions and light pollution so common these days, higher powers are frequently unusable and they very quickly deteriorate the image to the point that it's not nearly so useful as a smaller sharper one. Of course, that depends on what he's got now - if it's a 45mm deep-sky wide-field, or something like that, a 20mm would be very useful.

I hope this helps - but my astronomy is very rusty these days.

Mark

 

[Bird]

I was given a "Jupiter 50AZ-P, 2" (50mm) Altazimuth Refracting Telepscope" (by Meade) for Christmas. Don't know hardly anything about telescopes, 'cept to look in the little end, so I can't even claim to understand most of what ya'll said./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[Rowski]

PBurns,

I know nothing about telescopes. In fact never looked through one. But I do like looking at the stars, moon, and northernlights with the naked eye. There is a guy who just moved to my area from the Carolina's. He builds telescopes just a little operation. He is self employed. He has a web page http://www.parallaxinstruments.com/index.html. If you or anybody else do talk to him you can mention my name (Derek Saborowski).

Rowski

 

[PBMAX]

Mark,I do know that his is a Meade...He only has a couple of lenses,I forget what powers.It looks like a small Celestron.I priced one here localy,it was about $400 plus the cost of lenses and other accessories...I think he said he has about 800 in it so far and wanted the Barlow lense(fancy name for multiplier,new it had one just couldn't recall it)..He uses it from his place here in Bama on a small lake(few lights)compared to the city...My new property is even a lower light level...Nothin a well placed BB couldn't handle if it realy botherd me.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif...I think he wants the 2x'er for those times when one lense is'nt quite close enough and the next one up is a bit to close he mentioned buyng 2 or 3 more lenses and I think he feels he might get more flexability that way...Just geussing though....

Lil' Paul

Laziness is the Father of invention.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[PBMAX]

Rowski, /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif I'll pa---ruse that way one evening while I'm surfing...

Lil' Paul

Laziness is the Father of invention.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Kubota-monkey]

I have owned a telescope for quite a while. I have a Meade- reflecting telescope for deep space viewing. It works well and the moon is crystal clear through the telescope. If you were ever thinking of buying one i would suggest start out small and get bigger. With size comes money