Which telescope is your favorite???

Question

Please tell with me which telescope(s) you've owned that you like the best. Also tell me how many telescopes you've owned and your experience with telescopes.

Answer 1

my favourite scope is an 18 inch starsplitter dob. i can see the moons of jupiter as disks with it. i can see inside m13. i can see star clusters in m31. it shows what a dob can do: it moves with one finger, stays put, and doesn't vibrate. it's really cool.

my best scope is a takahashi toa-130. i take pictures with it. it cost as much as a nice used car.

how many have i owned? lots.

my experience? lots. 30 years, off and on.

Answer 2

In the last 40 years I have owned exactly 3 telescopes. The first was an Edmund 4". In high school with the help of a local club in San Diego, I built my first scope: 12.5" f5 Newtonian. I donated it to a local high school when I bough this:

http://www.obsessiontelescopes.com/teles...

The freedom provided by a dob is wonderful.

HTH

Charles

Answer 3

I actually have two:

1. an Orion XT10i Dobsonian

2. LX90 8" LNT

Answer 4

My favourite telescope is my Starmaster 11-inch f/4.3 Newtonian reflector. It is on a Dobsonian mount, but that is mounted on an equatorial platform so that I get equatorial tracking. This exact scope is no longer made, but this is similar:

http://www.starmastertelescopes.com/hybr...

To put it in context, here is a list of the 25 scopes I own or have owned over the past 51 years:

http://www.gaherty.ca/telescopes.htm

Finally, here's an article on this particular scope which indicates why it's my favourite:

http://www.gaherty.ca/tme/TME0602_Throug...

Answer 5

Almost every thing we look at in space was first seen and located with small telescopes with lenses and mirrors no where near the quality we have today.But granted there was no light pollution even remotely close as what we have now.Now that i'm much older for me handling the large scopes is just to much but i did buy the Orion Star Blast 6 which i can handle and at this time i would have call it my favorite along with my Vixen Cass/Mak VMC95L. I also have a meade etx80 that is lots of fun for the neighbor kids to look through.

Answer 6

My Orion XT10 is my current favorite.

I got a cheap Vivitar refractor for Christmas two years ago, but all it was good for was looking at the moon.  I got bored with it rather quickly and bought a cheap 60mm Meade refractor a couple months later.  That one was good for splitting double stars and viewing the planets, but I was hungry for deep sky objects.  I bought a 114mm tasco reflector at the local bushnell outlet and regretted that purchase almost immediately, the optics were lousy, the mount was wobbly and hard to use.  I decided to save up a bit and get a proper scope and for my birthday this year I bought my current scope, that thing is a beast.  It's finderscope alone is far superior to the vivitar.  The ring nebula went to a fuzzy spot to a green disk with a dark center.  Instead of just barely being able to see cloud detail on Jupiter on a good night, I can no see them with even in poor seeing.  I have seen the great red spot twice in the past month :-)  Since I bought a proper star atlas I'm seeing all kinds of thing I never thought I'd be able to find.

If you're thinking of getting a telescope learn from my mistakes and save up and buy a good one and get a good star atlas.  And be sure to upgrade your eyepieces first chance you get.  While most good scopes come with some excellent eyepieces, they are nothing compared to a good wide field eyepiece.

Answer 7

My favorite scopes are an astro-physics 140, and a TMB 115 classic CNC that was tweaked by Thomas Back.  

I use them on an Astro-Physics Mach1gto mount.

The TMB has better ergonomics, and is easier on my back.  The AP gathers more light.  Both have exceptional optics.

The largest beast I use on a regular basis is a 16" F15 classical cassegrain.  It was built and is maintained by members of my astronomical society.  If seeing conditions are very good, it's incredible for planets.  But most nights, either of my refractors will give a better view because the big scope has problems with tube currents.  

I mostly do public outreach, but I also enjoy imaging.  The Mach1 is a great mount for either purpose.  

I've owned a lot of scopes over the last 30 years, and still have most of them.  My biggest mistake was my C8 - it was the first scope I bought.  It just didn't have enough contrast for me, and I didn't like the fork mount.  

The silliest scope I ever had was a 90mm Dobsonian - picked it up at the swap tables at Stellafane to use as a prop to show people what dobs look like.  It actually worked reasonably well, but even kids needed to put it on a stool to use it.