Comments on: Which is the best telescope for home use?

By: braxton_paul

braxton_paul — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:38:20 +0000

First, the type of telescope you want depends mainly on what kind of observing you want to do. If you’re mostly interested in deep space, get yourself what’s called a REFLECTOR. I have an 8″ Meade reflector and under good “seeing” conditions can observe just about every star in our galaxy visible from the Northern Hemisphere, plus structures beyond the Milky Way up to about 10-billion light years. Just be sure and buy a reflector system that has a clock drive. This makes it possible to stay locked on to some object without having to constantly move the ’scope tube to compensate for Earth’s rotation.

If you’re into Solar System observing, then a refractor will do nicely. They don’t gather as much light as a reflector, but the resolution is much better–plus images aren’t inverted as with most reflectors.

Celestron Inc puts out the Cadillac of telescopes, but Meade provides very good products at less cost. Do NOT buy any telescope from retail stores like K-Mart, Sears, etc.,. Most of the stuff is cheap junk. Either buy mail order from Celestron or Meade, or visit a store that sells nothing but astronomy-related things.

God is spelled B-I-G B-A-N-G

By: jwissick

jwissick — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:33:03 +0000

Both brands are fine.

Keep in mind that the larger the appature, the more light you can collect, the farther and more colors you can see.

Also depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to take photos, you need a high quality tripod and prolly want a Cassegrain telescope as opposed to a Newtonian.

By: schlockading

schlockading — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:08:29 +0000

Well, if you’re looking for a good beginner telescope, I would suggest a brand such as Orion or Meade. The best type of telescope for beginners is one with a small aperature (length across the telescope), preferably including what is known as a “go-to” system. This is where you have a computerized touchpad that lets you select the object you want to look at, and then automatically pans to that object by itself. A good example of this type of scope would be a Meade ETX-70. These types of telescopes are also very portable and are typically priced at $200 or less.

By: shaula359

shaula359 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:07:49 +0000

Both Meade and Orion Telescopes have a good line of telescopes for beginners.