Which telescope would you recommend??

Question

What is a great telescope for viewing rings of saturn, planets, nebula, star clusters.... without a horrible distortion. What are the best focal length, magnification and so on? I am not sure what each aspect actually means, therefore I am unsure "what" I am buying and what telescope has a better feature. How important is the GPS and do you really "need" it? I was looking at a few different scopes, Celestron NexStar 130 SLT, Celestron NexStar 4 SE (this one is a little more exp. than I wanted to pay), There were a few others. I was hoping to get one for the enthusiast rather than beginner. Also, what does the "red dot" mean? I like the "go to" and astrophotograpghy ones. Thanks. I hope someone can help.

Answer 1

Orion

Answer 2

Any telescope with at least 4-inches of aperture can show the planets and brighter deep sky objects reasonably well from a dark site. Realistically, a 6-inch telescope is much better. You do not really need the Global Positioning Satellite feature, that is nice for some applications, but not a must have for visual observing. A red dot finder simply projects a red dot onto a window through which you look at the sky. Where the red dot is shows where the telescope is pointing. I would however forget astro-photography, at least on your first telescope. It's far more expensive that many people realize and requires a high quality mounting to handle the weight of both telescope and camera while tracking the target accurately. It's difficult and frustrating to master, and that is why there are relatively few folks who do it. However, you can with a CCD camera do some real science with astro photography, but it pays first to start with a basic telescope and move up from there. I would suggest an 8 or 10-inch Dobsonian, which can show lots of details on Jupiter and Saturn, the Moon and Mars when it's near Earth. You will also see many more nebulae and galaxies than you ever could with the telescopes you're considering now. You can upgrade them easily over time with things such as equatorial platforms and digital setting circles, which guide your right to thousands of objects. They fit in most cars, and even a 10-inch can be handled by one person easily. You can use them while seated on a chair or stool, even when pointed straight up. Before you spend any money, do find a local astronomy club and spend some time trying every telescope you can before you buy. You wouldn't buy a house or car without looking at them in person, and telescopes are no different.  

Answer 3

Here are a few web pages with good information on beginner's telescopes:

http://www.gaherty.ca/tme/TME0702_Buying...

http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html

http://observers.org/beginner/j.r.f.begi...

For more advanced information, read Phil Harrington's Star Ware, 4th edition (Wiley).

You'll get the greatest value for your money with a Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount, such as these:

http://www.telescope.com/control/categor...

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtin...

Buy from a store which specializes in telescopes and astronomy, either locally or online; don't buy from department stores, discount stores or eBay as mostly what they sell is junk. Find your local astronomy club and try out different telescopes at one of their star parties:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community...

Don't buy a telescope based on magnification, because any telescope can produce any magnification with the right eyepiece; the most important measurement is aperture, the diameter of the main mirror or lens. Most observing is done at magnifications around 50x; high magnifications are mainly used for resolving fine planetary detail, and require a very steady atmosphere. GPS is totally unnecessary in a telescope. The two scopes you mention sacrifice aperture for the convenience of computerized finding (go to)...look at the scopes I recommend above first. A "red dot" finder has you place a projected red dot on the object you want to look at; the ones on the two Celestron scopes are cheap, poorly made, and hard to use. Forget about astrophotography until you have a bit more experience in astronomy; it's the most difficult and expensive aspect of the hobby.