I want a telescope, what should I get?

Question

I like the Meade ones with autostar but have no idea what the EC PE and stuff like that stand for. I want something that can see pretty damn far. I dont need to see the moon, I want to see galaxies, planets and stuff like that, if that is even possible from a personal telescope. I am looking to spend about 400.00 on ebay for one. Thanks.

Answer 1

For the money it sounds like you're willing to spend, I would recommend (from my own experience) the Meade 90EC.
It's a Maksutov-Cassegrain with 90mm of aperture, and it delivers fine views of the Sun (properly filtered, of course), the planets, and (even though you SAY you're not interested in it), the Moon.
The 'EC' part of it means that it's Electonically Controlled.
By the way, the PE means 'Premier Edition', which I'm not familiar with.
Do yourself a favor, and check out this website:

www.weasner.com

and log onto Mike Weasner's Mighty ETX Site. You'll find out everything you ever wanted to know about this cool little scope.

Good Luck and Have Fun!
Clear Skies!

Answer 2

Every telescope is a compromise of some kind. If you have $400 to spend, you could spend it on a computerized telescope like the Meade, but you'd end up with a very small aperture which will only show you tiny planets and faint smudges for galaxies. On the other hand, if you forgo the electronics, you can get a Dobsonian reflector with a much larger aperture which will give you larger images of the planets and brighter images of galaxies. The second route is the one I would recommend. In that case. some telescopes to consider are these:
http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=9
http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/product.php?class1=1&class2=106

Here your $400 will buy you 8 inches of aperture, enough to get seriously good views of planets and galaxies. You'll need to find them yourself, but there are good books like Phil Harrington's Star Watch to help you do this.

Finally, do NOT buy a telescope off eBay. Nearly every scope I've seen there is the worst sort of junk, and will be extremely disappointing. Buy from a telescope store, either locally or online.

Answer 3

You are foolish to ignore the Moon. Everyone who looks at the Moon through a telescope is impressed. Saturn too. Everyone loves the Moon and Saturn as seen in a good telescope. And you are sure to be disappointed by galaxies. Everyone who looks at a galaxy live through a telescope is massively disappointed. They look NOTHING like the pictures you see all the time. Those pictures are the result of long exposure photography. It is not the telescope that makes them look so bright and detailed, it is the long exposure photography. To your eye, even in a large telescope, they are dim smudges of light that show absolutely no color and hardly any detail at all.

The famous Andromeda galaxy that you always see in pictures actually appears in our sky FIVE TIMES BIGGER than the Moon. You do not need a telescope to see it. But it is SO dim that even in the darkest sky, like in Big Bend National Park, only the very brightest part of the core can be seen. If your eyes could detect fainter light, then it would look, to your unaided eye, just like the photographs in the books that you have probably been assuming are high magnification images. They are nothing of the sort. Most of them are taken with an ordinary telephoto camera, with no more than 10 or 20 power magnification, but using long exposure photography.

And do not shop for a telescope on eBay. Shop these sources.

Answer 4

With any telescope in that price range, any other galaxy you might see will be virtually indistinguishable from a star...a dot of light.
Jupiter and it's major moons will be a small disk with a spot and several small dots. Mars will be a reddish disk.

It can still be interesting and inspiring. And the moon is very cool to look at. Put your money in to the best and largest objective element you can get. That probably will mean a 4" reflector scope rather than a 90mm refractor, but the electronic control IS a very nice feature to help with learning.

Answer 5

seem, human beings will inform you that it is a toddler's toy, and in assessment to telescopes some persons have used or geared up, it is. even though it is a ways extra advantageous than the bare eye. i might say in case you're thinking a pair of telescope that length, you're able to evaluate a pair of binoculars. i don't be attentive to what funds you're speaking approximately, yet you're able to desire to be waiting to locate some first rate 2d-hand ones with a minimum of 50 mm lenses for an identical cost. examine it out on e-bay a while. I somewhat have considered a lot of them there.

Answer 6

spend your four hundred dollars on a theft specialist to steal the diamond head observatory's telescope in Hawaii
it is described as the largest refracting telescope in the world

jk

Meade is pretty good, but for an amazing telescope that can zoom in on galaxies and planets, you are looking at something well over 3000 dollars
the telescopes that professional scientists would use
on the field, 400 dollars would by you a basic refracting telescope that can give off decent images of the moon and some shiny ones of nearby or bright planets.