Buying a telescope

Kelvin · Post by **Kelvin** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:27 pm

Hey, i a newbie in this science and looking for buying a scope, at those at toy r us good ? I under budget and over spending too much on this yet.
Me anything under $200.

And i have a spotting scope at home, could anyone tell me if the scope is good for astronomy ??

blurblock · Post by **blurblock** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:36 pm

You can safety forget about those at Toy r us ..... those are quite usless. However, you can take a good some secondhanded telescope people are selling here, those are often of pretty good quality.

Just put it this way, a normal EQ Mount Tripod Sam is selling is already costing $170, a normal eyepiece is already > $60

If you really need a good beginner scope, get one from Adree, he is selling his 4.5" Meade reflector for $120 .... but note .... no eyepiece or tripod.

A spotting scope will most probably be as good as a Binoculars in Astronomy.

harlequin2902 · Post by **harlequin2902** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:18 pm

a normal EQ Mount Tripod Sam is selling is already costing $170

That's a demo/display unit. A brand new one is nearly twice more, inclusive of shipping from Canada.

Kelvin : If you're considering Adree's scope, I can furthur reduce the price on the demo EQ2 mount and tripod just for you just so that you can put together a first astronomical telescope package for yourself for something close to your budget.

kayheem · Post by **kayheem** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:23 pm

blurblock wrote:You can safety forget about those at Toy r us ..... those are quite usless. However, you can take a good some secondhanded telescope people are selling here, those are often of pretty good quality.

Just put it this way, a normal EQ Mount Tripod Sam is selling is already costing $170, a normal eyepiece is already > $60

If you really need a good beginner scope, get one from Adree, he is selling his 4.5" Meade reflector for $120 .... but note .... no eyepiece or tripod.

A spotting scope will most probably be as good as a Binoculars in Astronomy.

Hi,

IMHO, a spotting scope would be a bit better than a pair of binocs as they can usually hit a higher power and sometimes comes with a zoom eyepiece.

Blurblock is right. You can forget the Toys R Us variety and the one that was sold at Carrefour a couple of months ago. If you have only $200, I suggest you continue to use the spotting scope and go for a few observations with the Singastro people to familiarize yourself with the different types of scopes first. You can start saving in the mean time. Do take a look at the 'sticky' post on the different types of scopes I wrote.

Kay Heem

harlequin2902 · Post by **harlequin2902** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:59 pm

And i have a spotting scope at home, could anyone tell me if the scope is good for astronomy ??

What's the spotting scope you have at the moment ?

Is it the straight through or 45 degree angled viewing type ?

Post by **VinSnr** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 2:17 pm

Kelvin wrote:Hey, i a newbie in this science and looking for buying a scope, at those at toy r us good ? I under budget and over spending too much on this yet.
Me anything under $200.

And i have a spotting scope at home, could anyone tell me if the scope is good for astronomy ??

if you have $200, I rather you go buy yourself a pair of good bino and learn the sky or use that money to go observing with some of us here. You learn better that way.

Those in toy-r-us don't even worth $50, not to mention $200. Dun waste your money on those scopes.

Kelvin · Post by **Kelvin** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:44 am

Oh my spotting scope is almost 10 years old but still working well... the lens coating seems to wearing out,... me using a carmera tripod for it

Mine is a straight 180 degree type not 45 deg, and YES you don't cramp up your ass to stare too long, 60x power quite cool, i use it to view jupiter last time, could see all it's planet and jupiter look like a big round ball of light. yellow bands hardly make out.

It looks like a blob of light, man ! spotting scope just can't do the job right ?>?

kayheem · Post by **kayheem** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 9:16 am

Kelvin wrote:Oh my spotting scope is almost 10 years old but still working well... the lens coating seems to wearing out,... me using a carmera tripod for it

Mine is a straight 180 degree type not 45 deg, and YES you don't cramp up your ass to stare too long, 60x power quite cool, i use it to view jupiter last time, could see all it's planet and jupiter look like a big round ball of light. yellow bands hardly make out.

It looks like a blob of light, man ! spotting scope just can't do the job right ?>?

A 60mm spotting scope re-introduced me to astro before I got my C5. I remembered seeing Saturn's ring thru it and it got me hooked. Your poor image may be due to fungus/dust or deterioration of the coatings. A 10 or 12X binocs will probably only Jupiter or Saturn as a spot of light.

What is the aperture/brand of your spotting scope.

Kay Heem

Post by **Airconvent** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:11 am

I was one of those who were conned by toys-r-us' " x525!! " scopes.
paid $150+ for their best model, a small newtonian.
the mount was so shakey it looked like I had 500 deg myopia. planet looked like dots and the finder was useless. about the only thing that scope could see is the moon....after 1.5 days, I packed the thing up and returned it to toys-r-us for a full refund (yes! they have such a policy!).
for $200, you could settle for a second hand newtonian but like what the gurus here are saying, perhaps you should try out other people's scopes first , get a feel on what you want and save up a little more for a decent. I think they can be bought for around $900+? Who knows....maybe after the CNY, your ang pow money would enable you to get a Tak Sky90 or Mewlon??

rich

SingAstro

Buying a telescope

Buying a telescope

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