Telescope Recommendation

[pozeking]

What telescope would y'all recommend in the $2500 dollar range for someone starting out? Thanks...

 

[adrenalynn]

can you tell us a bit more about your interests and experiences?<br /><br />Visual observation, astrophotography. What area do you live in, how bright is it? How close are you to a dark sky? What kind of vehicle do you drive? (Important when looking at the size of the scope and transporting to a dark sky) Want to do star parties? <br /><br />What's your level of experience with the sky? Any constellations you recognize?<br /><br />Buying a scope is a big investment, and doing some pre-planning is really important, imho.<br /><br />A less expensive scope may be better to start, even, until you figure out where your interests will end-up being. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>.</p><p><font size="3">bipartisan</font>  (<span style="color:blue" class="pointer"><span class="pron"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="2">bī-pär'tĭ-zən, -sən</font></span></span>) [Adj.]  Maintaining the ability to blame republications when your stimulus plan proves to be a devastating failure.</p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000"><font color="#ff0000">IMPE</font><font color="#c0c0c0">ACH</font> <font color="#0000ff"><font color="#c0c0c0">O</font>BAMA</font>!</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[heyscottie]

Also:<br /><br />What SORT of items are you interested in? Planets? Deep sky objects? Moon? Sun? Double stars? Everything?<br /><br />Do you want to do Astrophotography?<br /><br />Do you want Goto capability?<br /><br />Sorry about all the questions back at you, but try your hand at answering a few of them, and we should be able to give you a pretty good recommendation...<br />

 

[adrenalynn]

Thanks for the continuation on the type of objects. It was on my list to include in the question, but I missed it at the end. Mea Culpa! <br /><br />I'm also not convinced I could have answered those questions for my first scope, at least not accurately. I'm glad I built my first reflector from household items so I could get the experience in and figure out what it was I really wanted (which, of course, is everything. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>.</p><p><font size="3">bipartisan</font>  (<span style="color:blue" class="pointer"><span class="pron"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="2">bī-pär'tĭ-zən, -sən</font></span></span>) [Adj.]  Maintaining the ability to blame republications when your stimulus plan proves to be a devastating failure.</p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000"><font color="#ff0000">IMPE</font><font color="#c0c0c0">ACH</font> <font color="#0000ff"><font color="#c0c0c0">O</font>BAMA</font>!</font></strong></p> </div>