Telescope Buying Guide

Skive asked:


Preferably not a telescope with the dinky cardboard tubes overlapping each other (although I should probably build that first for experience..). I’m in a class that is enabling us to have an independent study, and I was wondering if an amateur like me could build a telescope (not from a kit) if I had the right mentor, instructions and materials. The project of the independent study is due in 3 months. Is this possible, and if so, what kind of telescope would it be?
Any tips/advice/helpful hints would be greatly appreciated!

Christopher L asked:


If you could build a telescope that can see light from 13-14 billion light years away, then you could see light from the early universe, no? Is it correct that you could point that telescope in any direction and pick up radiation from the early expansion of the universe?