Amature Astronomer, need help with a Telescope.

[Cdr_Zeta]

Hi,

I have a 10" SCT why anyone would want to spend $1000's of dollars on something that is too difficult to setup; there are awesome GOTO scopes now and even electronic eyepieces that will do wonders...My CCD is a 237...AND I plan on streaming some pictures I took of Jupiter...sorry only B&W but hey...I can see 8-10 moons...I plan on doing this along side of KSP while I am streaming as I am making an observatory in space now that Distant Objects works.

I have 2 main sets of about 10Gigs of data each 10 years apart - I am looking for new Binary systems ! I may add that to the stream some night !

Cmdr Zeta

[-Velocity-]

Hi,

I have a 10" SCT why anyone would want to spend $1000's of dollars on something that is too difficult to setup; there are awesome GOTO scopes now and even electronic eyepieces that will do wonders...My CCD is a 237...AND I plan on streaming some pictures I took of Jupiter...sorry only B&W but hey...I can see 8-10 moons...I plan on doing this along side of KSP while I am streaming as I am making an observatory in space now that Distant Objects works.

I have 2 main sets of about 10Gigs of data each 10 years apart - I am looking for new Binary systems ! I may add that to the stream some night !

Cmdr Zeta

Not every human being thinks as you do.

Here's an example- this is the way I feel about imaging-

"Why in the world would someone want to image astronomical objects instead of see them with their own eyes?! If you're going to be looking at pictures of astronomical objects on a computer screen, what in the world do you need the telescope for? Sell it, and stare at Hubble Space Telescope images downloaded off the internet all night long instead!"

So asking why anyone would want to own a big telescope that takes a long time to set up is stupid. Obviously, some people have different desires and opinions than you do, and those desires and opinions aren't any more or less valid than yours are.

In my case, I've seen probably well over than 10,000 deep sky objects over the past 20 years, especially in the past 13 years when I've had an 18" telescope or larger (at first, I wasn't nearly as spoiled by dark skies as I am now, and I had more opportunities to observe as well). Considering that I like to always observe some new objects (or new details in old objects) in an observing session, I can't tolerate the ugliness of light pollution, and I feel like I'm wasting my time under anything less than very dark skies, of course I need a very large telescope now. From 2009-2012 I was living in central Texas, and I actually got to use my 25" scope quite frequently. Since moving back to the southeastern US, I've only gotten to use my telescope twice- the weather really sucks that bad (though bad luck- such as being sick with a cold when conditions outside were perfect- has also played into it). I'm looking to get a job in the Southwestern US, where lots of wonderful outdoor hobbies will be available to me (such as hiking and excellent weather and very dark skies for astronomy). Assuming I get that job, I'll likely be able to use my 25" scope at least once a month on average.

Edited April 3, 2015 by |Velocity|

[PnDB]

Guys, i'm thinking about purchasing something better than my beat-up binocular. I found a Celestron C70 Mini MAK 25x75x70. It's a Maksutov-Cassegrain system, with 70 mm aperture. Focal lenght is 750 mm. What do you think about this one? It's dirt cheap, but weather in my place is abysmal for amateur sky watchers. Usually only a couple of clear nights per month - so i don't really want to invest into something more capable, because i will get very little mileage out of it.

The C70 Mini MAK is primarily a spotting scope and should work nicely for daytime viewing of birds and other wildlife. For night viewing, it should work reasonably well for viewing stars and planets. Viewing diffuse sources like nebulae might be problematic due to the smaller aperture, though you should get decent results if you keep the magnification below about 20x. The ability to use other 1.25" eyepieces with it is a nice feature, as you can swap out the zoom eyepiece for a nice fixed-focal-length one optimized for whatever you want to view. For wide-field viewing, you would want something along the lines of a nice 35mm Plossl or if your wallet can stand it a 35mm ultrawide eyepiece. For basic planetary viewing with this Mini MAK you would want a 5mm or 10mm Orthoscopic eyepeice. Then you can fill in the middle with a 16mm eyepiece at some point, should the need arise. Nice thing about 1.25" eyepieces is that you can almost always use them on a future scope if you decide you want something different.

And then there's filters to screw into the eyepieces to enhance contrast of particular planetary features, etc... you can get poor pretty fast if you go all-in on astro-viewing.

[Motokid600]

@[Velocity] - I take it your larger scopes are Dobs? I'd love to get one for observing. I've got a Celestron CPC11 Thats treated me real nice. It's ashame though I've hit a wall with my imaging hobby until I can get a permanent setup in an observatory. Summer project.