Night watch...getting started?

Question

I'm interested in setting up an amateur lab at home to view the night sky. Can someone suggest the right telescope (as in company, make, etc) for viewing? I would just like to take this up as a hobby and develop on it as time goes on. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

I'd strongly recommend finding an amateur astronomy group in your area. There are lots of them all around the world. Most of them have "star parties" once a month or so that are open to the public. At these star parties, everyone who has a telescope brings it (some people have several) and lets others look through. These folks love talking about astronomy and about their 'scopes, so I'm sure they'd be happy to give you suggestions. This way you can also get a feel for the different type of telescopes out there.

Do you have a good pair of binoculars? I always recommend people start with binoculars and work their way up to bigger and better telescopes - all too often people spend a lot of money on a telescope and then get frustrated because they don't know how to use it or they thought they'd get Hubble-quality images through their 2-inch telescope.

Another idea is to pick up an issue of Sky & Telescope magazine or Astronomy magazine (or visit their websites). They have tons of ads, of course, and they usually have reviews of telescopes, too. The website for Sky & Telescope also has links to regional amateur astronomy clubs.

Answer 2

A good recommendation requires more information from you first. What kind of budget do you have? Is ease of portability important to you? Are you a technically-minded person that doesn't mind/enjoys dealing with technical aspects of things, or do you prefer something simple and easy to figure out? Are there any particular targets you're most interested in viewing, or just a little bit of everything? Do you want your scope to automatically track the sky for you, or even more, do you want it to have computerized pointing, or do you mind doing it yourself via star charts and memory?

If you're really interested in getting into this exciting and fun hobby, I recommend checking out the forums at www.cloudynights.com and see what people have to say there. You will find no shortage of information or people willing to help you out on this subject.