Telescope recommendations for terrestrial and astronomy viewing?

Question

Terrestrially, I look at ships that are two miles away and I want to see the flags they are flying and read the name on the prow (the stern is not always visible).

I am looking to spend a maximum of $500 including taxes. I don't need "bells and whistles" either; I just want the scope to be worth the money.

I'd rather have more scope than motorization and I want an Azimuth mount. Slow motion control would be good (ships are moving).

What I have now is a cheap 60mm f15 (a Jason 319 Mercury), with 20mm and 14mm eyepieces (1.25" with a converter diagonal). I can read the name on the prow okay, but the flags are too small to really make them out.

The 14mm eyepiece (2x marlow) gets me up to 128x, which is clear but dim in a 60mm scope (120x is probably the absolute most that I should expect).

I do like the view at 128x and for viewing the Moon and major planets etc I'm thinking of more power (up to 200x or so), though more aperture is higher priority.

Advice please? Thank you!

Answer 1

You could get a 90mm refractor or a 100mm Mak-Cass on a slow-motion alt-azimuth mount for your $500. Check out the models below from Orion. The Mak needs a separate mount, which they have for $150. Either of these will do double-duty as terrestrial and astronomical scopes. For astronomy, a 90° star diagonal will work better than the supplied correct-image diagonal. Both will out-perform your 60mm Jason, though the refractor will show a bit more chromatic aberration.

Getting sharp high-power views is often limited by the seeing. A larger aperture won't help any with the heat shimmer you often get over both water and land.

Answer 2

for astronomy purposes, forget power! on land you have the sun providing lots & lots of light. that's not the case with anything other than the brighter planets.

i have an 8" sct, a very high quality 2" william optics diagonal, and very high quality 2" televue eyepieces and NEVER go above 200x to look at deep sky objects...it's like looking at an out of focus photograph that's been enlarged too much in hardly any light.

the Orion Apex 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain (without tripod) at $400 + their AZ-3 Altazimuth Mount at $150 might be a good place to start looking.

plenty of aperture and a decent 'scope as long as you don't intend to get into astrophotography (f/12.1 makes for good visual but very slow photo work).

a quality barlow down the road (or as a present from someone) would work wonders as well.

best of luck.

Answer 3

The Maksutov-Cassegrain type of telescope is known for it's sharp optics, said to rival top quality Refractors.
It is also very compact and therefore easy to transport. The Orion Line of Mak-Cass telescopes are of very good quality and very reasonable prices. (www.telescope.com) It seems that for your purpose the Apex 127mm which comes in at $399.- with it's alt-az mount, would work very nicely, as has already been suggested. The 5" Aperture would give you a much brighter image and with it's 1540mm focal length, even an 8 to 10mm eyepiece would give you the kind of magnification you are looking for without having to go to super short focal lengths eyepieces with their tiny eye lenses which make viewing fairly uncomfortable.
I would strongly suggest that you get a 6mm and a 10mm Orion "Expanse" eyepiece. As far as I am concerned, they are the greatest bargain around.!! They have huge eye lenses, a very wide field of view and great eye relief. All of which contributes to great views and very relaxed observing conditions. My brother loves to watch the sailboat races from his living room overlooking lake Ontario. The races are held about 3 miles away. He fought with a 60mm Bushnell for years. I finally put him out of his misery by getting him the above mentioned setup for last Xmas. Now, instead of cussing at the lousy views, he can give running commentaries on the races, a happy man indeed.

Adolph