Great Telescopes To Buy
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at
8:55 pm
my 60mm refractor and my 10'' dobsonian reflector and my lenses please comment
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US $34.99
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Finally Watchinq "Fame" &&nd Did Great ! Aweeee ! " I Gottah Get It ,Baby "
By Joel Achenbach Doug Hudgins is a NASA planetary scientist who built a home-made telescope (a Dobsonian reflector with a 24-inch mirror, for those who keep track of such things). It’s an impressive contraption, a bit larger than your average battlefield cannon. He usually keeps it in his garage, dismantled, but Wednesday afternoon it sat on the South Lawn at the White House, one of dozens of telescopes on hand for a “star party” in the evening for 150 middle-school kids. “The Wild Duck Cluster is up,” Hudgins said, anticipating a likely target once the sky turned dark. “It’s an open cluster of stars in the Milky Way in the constellation of Scutum, I believe. It’s beautiful.” For now he had it aimed at an American flag atop a building a couple of blocks away. Through the eyepiece, the flag’s stars loomed so large you could almost see the sunspots.
I think overall the SkyQuest XT6 will be a much better choice. You will be able to use it on the ground vs a tabletop. It will be easier to collimate and keep collimated. It should perform better on the Moon and planets because of this AND because f/8 vs f/5 is much more forgiving of eyepiece aberrations.
Plus, and this is a big plus — it is easier to manufacture a good quality mirror at f/8 than at f/5 which means that you are less likely to get a lemon with the longer focal ratio.
The only real advantage of the StarBlast is that it is a little more portable. But the SkyQuest isn't that heavy either.
By Joel Achenbach Doug Hudgins is a NASA planetary scientist who built a home-made telescope (a Dobsonian reflector with a 24-inch mirror, for those who keep track of such things). It’s an impressive contraption, a bit larger than your average battlefield cannon. He usually keeps it in his garage, dismantled, but Wednesday afternoon it sat on the South Lawn at the White House, one of dozens of telescopes on hand for a “star party” in the evening for 150 middle-school kids. “The Wild Duck Cluster is up,” Hudgins said, anticipating a likely target once the sky turned dark. “It’s an open cluster of stars in the Milky Way in the constellation of Scutum, I believe. It’s beautiful.” For now he had it aimed at an American flag atop a building a couple of blocks away. Through the eyepiece, the flag’s stars loomed so large you could almost see the sunspots.
without the invention of a telescope, we would still not understand that the earth is not the center of the universe, that the nine planets revolve around the sun, that heaven is not above the clouds, and that the stars dont move and do eventually die out. it was a very important discovery.
Craig Smith sent us these pics and note:
My telescope is low end in the scope-world, a 60mm refractor. But I discovered the eyepiece is the same size as my digital camera telephoto lens. My digital camera is low end in the camera world, too, a 3.2MP. But put them together with a custom PVC sleeve aligning lens-to-eyepiece, and I’m getting awesome moon shots. Here is the moon on 11/5/09. I added a camera support arm also, a quick adjustment of the tripod leg’s wing nut, and I’m all aligned to photograph the skies. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Imaging | Digg this!
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go buy ur self 6000mm Refractor, you can see no american flag serious !
By Joel Achenbach Doug Hudgins is a NASA planetary scientist who built a home-made telescope (a Dobsonian reflector with a 24-inch mirror, for those who keep track of such things). It’s an impressive contraption, a bit larger than your average battlefield cannon. He usually keeps it in his garage, dismantled, but Wednesday afternoon it sat on the South Lawn at the White House, one of dozens of telescopes on hand for a “star party” in the evening for 150 middle-school kids. “The Wild Duck Cluster is up,” Hudgins said, anticipating a likely target once the sky turned dark. “It’s an open cluster of stars in the Milky Way in the constellation of Scutum, I believe. It’s beautiful.” For now he had it aimed at an American flag atop a building a couple of blocks away. Through the eyepiece, the flag’s stars loomed so large you could almost see the sunspots.
no, she got the psychological warfare treatment from her mom and then turned around and announced to me that we were getting divorced when we got back to the US.
Haha – yes it does. Nice spot.
Awesome! I love all NASA’s discoveries, and I hope we’ll learn to see the sky often then we do!
Clara your just so addorable.
Telescopes » Blog Archive » Galileo CC-2 700 x 60mm Refractor …
You can see Uranus with just a mirror
have a nice day!
Awesome! I just bought the same camcorder as you, gunna be an awesome ride.
“Do we HAVE to all believe the same thing to be able to coexist peacefully?” – Lindsay, that’s my question too! Though could you tell me what you consider the “imposing parts” of religions? (Genuinely curious/wondering).
he also wasn’t an american citizen
You can find something better. I'd return it quickly. Generally you need at least $400 to get a good telescope but Orion Telescopes does offer fairly decent beginner scopes for about $150.
You will want to buy a reflector, not a refractor, and make sure it's aperture, the diameter of the primary mirror, is no smaller than 4.5"
That's about 114mm.
By the way, on the Galileo the 700mm x60mm is read as follows. The 700mm is the focal length of the telescope. This is the distance the light travels from the lens until the point it comes to a focus near the eyepiece. So it's almost the length of the telescope in refractors anyway. The 60mm is the telescope's aperture, which in this case is the diameter of the lens.
Binoculars may say 7×50 on them but this is a little different. The 7 is the number of times the object will be magnified, the 50 is in milimeters and is the diameter of the binocular's large lenses.
Science writer Simon Singh and Tracey Brown from Sense About Science tell us about Libel Reform Week and the campaign to change Britain’s libel laws and protect scientific freedom of expression. Simon is currently locked in a legal battle over a comment piece published in the Guardian. Matthew Applegate, aka Pixelh8, is performing an audiovisual study as part of Cambridge Science Festival. We went along to the Institute of Astronomy to hear the telescopes he used as his musical instruments. …
By Joel Achenbach Doug Hudgins is a NASA planetary scientist who built a home-made telescope (a Dobsonian reflector with a 24-inch mirror, for those who keep track of such things). It’s an impressive contraption, a bit larger than your average battlefield cannon. He usually keeps it in his garage, dismantled, but Wednesday afternoon it sat on the South Lawn at the White House, one of dozens of telescopes on hand for a “star party” in the evening for 150 middle-school kids. “The Wild Duck Cluster is up,” Hudgins said, anticipating a likely target once the sky turned dark. “It’s an open cluster of stars in the Milky Way in the constellation of Scutum, I believe. It’s beautiful.” For now he had it aimed at an American flag atop a building a couple of blocks away. Through the eyepiece, the flag’s stars loomed so large you could almost see the sunspots.
You really need to be careful. I cannot emphasize this enough: DO NOT buy a telescope from a department store. 99% of them are complete rubbish and will instantly kill this youngster's admirable enthusiasm.
DO buy a telescope from a reputable dealer. I would recommend http://www.oriontelescopes.com, or Meade, or Celestron.
they all have a full range, and their inexpensive scopes are still quite good.
Now, which scope to buy? If you're living in light polluted urban skies (which, unfortunately many of us are), I would recommend a small refractor – the size you mention is just fine (more on goto below). That is a good scope to see the moon, Venus, mars, Jupiter and Saturn (and yes, you CAN see the rings in a small scope). That's about all you're going to see in light polluted conditions anyway. If you have access to darker skies and want to also see nebula, galaxies, star clusters, etc. I'd recommend something like a 6"-8" Dobsonian reflector. You get a lot of bang for the buck with reflectors in general, and Dobsonians in particular. I have built two Dobsonians myself – which is another option if you're even a little handy. In fact, it's an ideal father-son (or mother-daughter!) project. Plans can be found online.
Next, make sure you get high-quality eyepieces – a range, the higher mm number = lower power. Buy plossls. Don't equate lower power with less good, it doesn't work that way, but explaining that is too much to go into here. Get at least something like a 25mm and maybe an 8mm and maybe one more in the middle. The 8mm will allow you (if sky conditions are decent) to see a lot of detail on the moon (which is, despite all I've seen, still one of my favorite targets).
As for goto, I would skip it at this point. I find that it's just too easy for beginners and many never really learn the night sky as a result. If you get a good guide book, you will be able to find what you're looking for without too much effort. I highly recommend "Turn Left at Orion" For a rank beginner and even for myself (been amateur astronomer for 20 years), it's just a wonderful easy guide.
It's a wonderful hobby! good luck.
ATN Corp Night Storm Gen. 1 Night Vision Monocular NVMNNSTM10 Color: Black
by ATN
Date first available at Amazon.com: February 21, 2010
(Ranking is updated hourly. Visit the Hot New Releases in Binoculars, Telescopes & Optics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)
lots i think about 27
thanx you
NERD ALERT: mars will be opposite the sun tonight get out your telescopes and cameras saturn (ring planet) can be seen monday
fantastic
GREGOR and the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope ATST, New Terrestrial Solar Telescopes
Tasco Rimfire 1×30mm Red Dot Sight BKRD3022
by Tasco
Date first available at Amazon.com: February 25, 2010
(Ranking is updated hourly. Visit the Hot New Releases in Binoculars, Telescopes & Optics list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)
What a sweet lady, and apparently, what a great cook as well. Love the vids, and I do intend to buy the material for my wife. I think she’d appreciate it.
Well, …, is there any way you can save your money just a little longer and get the Orion XT6 (at $279.95)? You really need a 6" mirror for deep sky observing. It's an excellent scope, worth saving for, and it will give you many years of trouble free observing.
I beleieve the scope comes with a 26mm plossl eyepiece. If your money is tight (an whose isn't these days), you can always by extra lenses and a barlow lens later. For now get the scope and learn how to use it before buying a bunch of eyepieces.