I'm interested in astronomy, and have been as long as I can remember. I never looked through a telescope at the sky, though. I guess I thought you had to have one of those monsters they use at the professional observatories. I don't know. It was only in 1997 that I realized I could actually afford a good-quality telescope. So I read lots of books on amateur astronomy, FAQs out on the net, Sky and Telescope magazine, Astronomy magazine, and I joined a local astronomy club, the Friends of the Observatory. Finally, I bought a Meade 8-inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount, and have been very pleased with it. That wasn't enough, though. Shortly afterwards, I bought a 60mm refractor on an equatorial mount just for the hell of it. I'm glad I didn't buy one of those first, as it's just about adequate for looking at the moon. Oh, I can see cloud bands on Jupiter with it, and the rings of Saturn, but no real detail. But I still wanted a refractor -- don't ask why, maybe because it LOOKS more like a telescope -- and ended up with an Orion VX102 on a Great Polaris mount. Nice scope. I can see more with the dob, but this one fits in my car better, and has the advantage of being able to follow objects at high magnifications a little easier. I also have a Celestron 80mm wide-angle scope, which I use on a camera tripod for daytime viewing (ie, playing) and some low-power scanning of the sky.
I received email from someone asking for comments about my VX102 refractor; apparently he was thinking of buying one. I took the email I sent to him, edited it a little, and posted it here.
If you're at all interested in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), then the SETI at Home is something you might consider getting involved with. You can get more details on their site, but basically you install a screen saver processes data from radio telescopes when your computer is idle. You can also join groups; the Friends of the Observatory have their own group. I've mostly been using my computer at work for this, since it's on a LAN and can connect automatically whenever it needs more data.
The pictures in the ads for telescopes don't always show what you want to see, so I've taken pictures of the kinds of angles I would have liked. I hope these pictures will help other people get a feel for what some telescopes, at least, look like. One thing I've noticed is that telescopes often look much bigger in real life than they do in a picture.
Here are three of my scopes set up side by side, for comparison.
This is the Celestron 80mm wide-angle telescope. I altered a BB electronic sight to use with it, as I hated the spotting scope that came with it. Besides, it seemed a little odd to use a spotting scope on a spotting scope, don't you think? My dad took a scrap piece of aluminum and milled out the little piece that fits where the spotting scope was. Much better than I had planned; I was going to use double-sided tape. I've got the scope mounted on a camera tripod, which is why it isn't in the other pictures: I was using the tripod for the camera. The tripod works pretty well at low magnifications, but as you'd expect it gets a bit cranky if you go above 50x or so. But the scope was designed for low-power views, so I have no complaints. The other scopes are for high powers.
The Orion VX102 achromatic refractor, made by Vixen of Japan. This is my most expensive scope, and I can definitely see why. The whole thing is just wonderfully manufactured. The mount allows you to push the scope around easily, and you don't even notice that it's on two separate axes -- it's like it's on a ball joint. That is, unless you switch to the opposite side of the sky, in which case you have to watch what you're doing. The focussing seems smooth to my unpracticed hand, and the images are sharp and clear.
This is the first telescope I bought, and is by far the easiest to use and set up. However, I don't have room for it in my apartment, so I keep it over at my girlfriend's house (where these pictures were taken), and use it when I'm there. It's quicker to set up than the Vixen, and since it has twice the aperture (4x the light-collecting power), it's much better at dim deep-space objects. But for planets I generally like the 4-inch better, even though this one has better resolving power.
This is a Meade model 285, a 60mm f/15 refractor. I sort of regret buying it, as I don't really use it. I bought it shortly after I bought the dob, thinking I might use it as a more portable scope. Still, I sometimes use it for looking at sunspots, as I have a solar filter that fits it.
This is my homemade eyepiece case. My dad pulled this small suitcase out of the attic, along with some foam rubber that he had saved, and voilá!, instant eyepiece case. My girlfriend had actually bought me an eyepiece case for my birthday, but I liked this better, so she sent that back and bought me some color filters instead. (Good thing she's easy to get along with <g>)
In case you're interested, the eyepieces are:
I also have a Thousand Oaks broad-band light pollution filter, a neutral-color moon filter, and the basic set of four color filters from Orion. Not a large collection of paraphernalia, but as much as I need at the moment. I like using the large eyepieces with the barlows to get higher powers, as the eye relief is much better that way, and I can leave my glasses on. Without them I can barely see Jupiter.... The 90-degree diagonal came with the Vixen, and the 45-degree erecting prism came with the 80mm WA.
I also bought the optional accessory package for the dob, but I think I wasted my money. The MA eyepices that came with it aren't all that good, in my opinion. I sometimes use the 25mm in the Celestron 80mm, but I rarely bother with the 12mm and 9mm. The Meade 285 came with a MA 25mm and a Huygenian 9mm eyepice. As far as I'm concerned, they could have left out the Huygenian and gave me a single 25mm Plössl. If I want an eyepiece with a centuries-old design, I'll... well, I don't really want an eyepiece with a a centuries-old design. (except maybe just to see how bad it really is)