Visable objects with 5 inch Reflector

[mutleyeng]

i just gotta say to Rick...mate, your advice is spot on, astronomy clubs and star parties are the best way not to make mistakes.
BUT - one cap does not fit all.
While Adam is fine with it in principle, clubs are not for everybody.
I really dont think its quite the minefield you are making it out to be.
Your insistence that it is the only way to do things may be a tad offputting for some people.
Ive never been to a club or star party in my life. But with the internet its really not so difficult to research a suitable solution for what you would like.
I bought a slightly used 8" LX200 gps, a meade DSI pro and a LP filter as my skies are terrible. First night i used it i was imaging the ring nebula...having no knowledge of the sky whatsoever.
I still have it, i still use it.
Its not THAT difficult!
I added a Williams optics ZS110 to the party just because i fell in love with it and had to have one...but thats another story.

EDIT
yikes, sorry it such an old thread, i did a search for something else and forgot thats what thread list was...
sorry again everyone

[RickJ]

All I'm doing is citing my over 60 years experience. If you haven't been to a star party or club how can you say they don't help. Most in this hobby tend to be loners in they are not in it for socialization. They however have learned they progress much faster and farther with a club than without. Of course there are exceptions but from my experience they go much farther with a club to fall back on.

Over the years we've had hundreds to our star parties with new scopes. Those that attended several before have been mostly happy with their choice of scope. But the majority that bought before attending even one admitted they would have bought differently had they done so. Hence my advice. We even had one pair of newbies trade scopes at the star party as each preferred the one the other bought.

You can research all you want but until you've set up a scope in the dark in winter in gloves or frozen fingers dropping a screw in the grass never to be seen again or used a scope in humid conditions and found it fogged up at the drop of the hat or any other of dozens of things you can't get a handle on in reviews. Reviews are fine but the reviewer isn't working under your conditions. A 20 minute set up might not bother him and never be mentioned but you were expecting a scope you could haul out for a fast look and be done. Just too many factors. Most wouldn't buy a house from the realtors pictures. They'd tour it and the neighborhood. Most would test drive a car before buying even though in both cases they know a lot about how cars handle and about houses having used them before. But for some reason scopes are bought without any hands on experience let alone anything akin to a walk through or test drive. Yet the right scope can last the user for years. I still use my first scope, home built in 1954. It is just as useful today as it was then. Gives views equal to or better than anything on today's market in its aperture size, 6" including a couple super expensive modern APO refractors.

All scopes are a compromise. There is no such thing as a no compromise scope at any price nor could there ever be. There only are better scopes for what a particular user wants out of the hobby in his price range. But until the buyer knows what he wants out of a scope and what the compromises are and which he is willing to make and which he isn't there's no way for a buyer to know what to buy. He might get lucky or unlucky in his pick.

Many who don't buy what's even close to best for their needs and budget are still happy with their choice until they attend star parties and discover what the have been missing all this time. I've watched that turn several from the hobby totally. So maybe such folk shouldn't ever learn of their mistake buy attending a star party? I don't have the answer to that. Just that those I've seen happiest with their choice for many years are those that bought only after hands on experience with a variety of scopes before buying. Experience that star parties provide.

Of course there are poor clubs, I knew one that was a pure social club and worthless to the hobby. Fortunately the social folks were kicked out and it is now a much better club. But the vast majority are their mainly to serve the beginner and help him advance in the hobby. Sort of the astronomical equivalent of the Ham Radio's "Elmer".

As I've mentioned before. I helped found our club out of the need for help from others. None of us knew much but somehow we pulled each other up. One of them is now Dr. Pete Schultz of Brown University. The guy who designed the Temple 1 Deep Impact impactor. Another who I recruited out of high school for the club headed the Optical team in charge of building Gemini North and South telescopes. Several others are now professional astronomers. Obviously most of us don't have such lofty goals but those two both say they'd never have accomplished what they've done in the field without the help of the club. We've failed a few over the years. Mostly those who were already lost before they found us. Still I remember those failures all too well. Fortunately they are few compared to the vast majority we've helped.

There's even a book about the club written by a member that details it all, good and bad. Review in Astronomy Magazine blog. http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/blogs/...astronomy.aspx

You can even read about some of my goofs and failures.

Rick

[mutleyeng]

All I'm doing is citing my over 60 years experience. If you haven't been to a star party or club how can you say they don't help.
Rick

Rick, i didnt say they dont help..i said quite the reverse, that you were giving the best advice possible.
It should be number one on the advice list.
If for whatever reason they do not wish to do that, then we can still respect that and point them in other directions that suit the way they wish to approach the hobby without.
I agree reviews dont help much, but with this internet thing you can go way deeper than that, and IF they just dont want to do the club thing, many questions can be answered and advice given which is tailored to what they are looking for.

i learnt everything online. The LX was pretty easy being alt-az mount, but then i got the EQ5 (which by the way everyone told me i should have gone for the EQ6- but i knew the 5 suited my requirements better) for the refractor and learnt how to polar align from forums and youtube- i learnt about imaging online, tracking accuracy, guide scopes.
Its not the best way - but 99% of time i just use in my front yard and that was always the way i wanted the hobby to be.

[Adamsavage]

Here is the specs to the scope I was trying out.

Meade 2080 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, 2032mm focal length, f/10

Well turns out I can't get this scope now. The manager/owner of the store suddenly decided he rather rent the scope. He pretty much flat out refuses to sell it to me, and he knows I would love to buy it. Not a very good business move on his end, but I really don't have anywhere else to go as it's the only store in the city. The frustrating part is I've tried out 3 different kinds of scopes and I found I liked that on the best. I could just order one online, but the shipping would be brutal.

[ShinAce]

Adam, why don't you just attend a star party in Ottawa? You may very well find someone who has a telescope you like for sale. They might know of others who have telescopes for sale. You can also peruse usedottawa.com and other sites waiting for your scope to show up. It's a big universe out there! You don't have to shop exclusively at focus scientific.

[Adamsavage]

Adam, why don't you just attend a star party in Ottawa? You may very well find someone who has a telescope you like for sale. They might know of others who have telescopes for sale. You can also peruse usedottawa.com and other sites waiting for your scope to show up. It's a big universe out there! You don't have to shop exclusively at focus scientific.

There hasn't been one yet, well there was one but I had to work so I couldn't go. I did finally get the scope I wanted, and I'm glad I have it. It was going for $600 plus tax, I got got for $497 after taxes. I traded in my 5 inch, and I got a $40 credit towards the new to me scope, because I rented that 8 inch dob for a week. So for this type of scope, and the fact it has auto tracking is very nice. I don't even have to use the motor if I don't want to.

[Adamsavage]

Well thanks to my local Astronomy club, I now know how to polar align my scope. I did it twice today on my own and the scope was able to keep the object in the eyepiece for about 5 minutes before it started to drift on me. Still slow doing it, but the more I do it the faster and easier it will get.

[LookingSkyward]

Yay! Keep on it, Adam!

[Adamsavage]

I went to my first meeting last night, and I have a ride lined up to go to my first Star Party this Friday.