Who here owns a Telescope?

[Viking 0]

If you do vote up above and please post what you have and how you like it.

I grew up looking through my dads 8 inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain. I'v got your basic cheap 60mm refractor back in Louisiana that i havn't used in four years. I also have a pair of Bushnell 16x50 Powerview bino's that i use here in California. I'm thinking about buying either an 8" or 10" Orion or Celestron Dobsonian. The Orion's are available with Computer tracking systems so i'm leaning towards them.

So how many star gazers we have here?

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[dustin19d 0]

Whats with all the space posts lately?

[Deuce 1]

Viking, they still have to leave the curtains open for you to be able to see anything.

[Viking 0]

I'm taking an astronomy class this semester and it restarted my obsession with it. It seems i can never find a cheap hobby lol

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Viking 0]

Quote

Viking, they still have to leave the curtains open for you to be able to see anything.

*feels something fly right over my head*

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[champu 1]

oops, voted Schmidt-Cassegrain but actually now that I'm reading about it, I think it was a Maksutov-Cassegrain (not really all that different I don't think, more like a small improvement on the same idea)

anyway, Meade telescope with a 5" aperture. Twas a fun toy as a kid, but I was never a real big astronomy buff.

[BoostedXT 0]

My family has a Nexstar 11 GPS put out by Celestron. 11" and F/10.

Its on the deck of my home....I will see if I have any pics of it....its bad ass. Let me rummage and find some pics of it.

Joe

For long as you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all that you touch and all that you see is all your life will ever be.
Pedro Offers you his Protection.

[Viking 0]

YOU SUCK!!!!

lucky bastards

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[BoostedXT 0]

Noooo....you suck.

I can see marshans having teh s3x!

Joe

For long as you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all that you touch and all that you see is all your life will ever be.
Pedro Offers you his Protection.

[Casurf1978 0]

Quote

YOU SUCK!!!!

lucky bastards

Ditto. I use to have an 8 inch Meade, sold it cuz it's just not worth having one in LA. I also took an astronomy class in college, ended up taking close 3 more and one was a semester devoted to optics and making one. We made Newtonians, Schmitts are just way to hard. Fun class and learned a lot about the optics too.

[Viking 0]

Quote

Noooo....you suck.

I can see marshans having teh s3x!

Joe

lol you still suck!!!! how much did you guys pay for it?

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[BoostedXT 0]

List is a touch over $6,300, but I think we paid about $4,500.

Have it on the deck of our vacation house in NH. I often take it down to the river at night. Towns population is about 200 people. No street lights, traffic lights, or car lights seeing how it is on our beach.
Joe
PS- marvin says you suck even more.

For long as you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all that you touch and all that you see is all your life will ever be.
Pedro Offers you his Protection.

[Viking 0]

and you were bitching about not being able to pay car insurance?!!

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[BoostedXT 0]

Yup.....thats me....I am on my own...I dont mooch. Moochers suck......just like aliens. Well aliens are pretty cool, but moochers still suck.

Joe

For long as you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all that you touch and all that you see is all your life will ever be.
Pedro Offers you his Protection.

[FIREFLYR 0]

I have a Meade DS-70 Refracting telescope.
(D=70mm, F=700mm f/10) 1.25" and 2" eyepieces.
Compatible with StarNavigator PC- Compatible astronomical objects (which ofcorse I don't own)
Translation:$180 and I can see stuff pretty far away.
I want to take it out to the DZ and see if I can follow people in freefall.
~J

"One flew East,and one flew West..............one flew over the cuckoo's nest"
"There's absolutely no excuse for the way I'm about to act"

[Guest]

I've got a mirror from an earth-based IR laser network transceiver that I want to convert into a telescope.

It came with all kinds of amazing optics, in addition to the 16" mirror with a 4" hole in the middle. The guy I bought it from told me that amateur astronomers were converting these units into Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector assemblies, but I lack the knowledge to do so.

However, the next meeting of the Seattle Astronomical Society is next Wednesday night at the University of Washington's Astronomy Center; I was thinking about taking it there and seeing if anybody was interested in helping me, or lacking that, buying it from me...

mh

.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

I don't really know jack about astronomy or telescopes. Actually, I guess I may know a smidge more about astronomy than I do about technical aspects of telescopes.

All those different names you put up there baffle me -- I assume they are different types of telescopes (in that they work in different ways)?

I voted "binoculars on tripod" because I thought that simply meant "some cheapy telescope," and not literally binoculars mounted on a tripod. Mine is some old Tasco that I was given for Christmas during high school. It's fifteen or so years old and I still have it.

I don't understand the fascination with telescopes largely because I don't know what there is to see with them. Can you really see decent stuff looking through the atmosphere with a home-based telescope? I know you can see the moon great, and sometimes Jupiter and stuff. But it's not like you can see those crazy galaxies and stuff, is it? I thought that was far advanced national-labs stuff. I know that with land-based telescopes, you get interference from the atmosphere, and vibration makes it hard to look at stuff like the moon (maybe it's just that I have a cheap telescope!), and whatever you're watching will move relative to where your scope is pointed, so you need to constantly adjust.

Once, I was at the Vanderbilt Planetarium in Centerport, Long Island, and after the laser rock show they invited people into their observatory and showed us Jupiter, and we could see several of the moons around it! That was pretty cool, but it was, for all intents and purposes, like looking at a black and white photograph. Not particularly spectacular in a visual sense -- just a mental one.

If you ever visit, that's a cool planetarium/museum to go check out. In the lobby, they have cases of various insects, butteflies, moths, beetles from some person's old-timey collection. They're labeled with dates like 1932, etc. I remember standing on line for the laser show one time, near one insect case, and I realized that they had the "Death's Head Moth," like was featured in The Silence of the Lambs! That was freaky and cool! (I no longer remember the genus Species names for it.)

Peace,
-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[RevJim 0]

Where's the option for the 16" Celestron?

Oh, yea, I don't own it, but have access to it 2 times a week for now, and nightly starting this fall...

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[Viking 0]

what kind of celestron Jimbo?

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[RevJim 0]

I don't know, yet. I'm not able to make the drive right now (crap), but this fall, woooo hoooo!

Very little about it on the website either, which hasn't been updated since holiday break last year...

here:http://www.uwsp.edu/physastr/plan_obs/Observatory.htm
and here:http://www.uwsp.edu/physastr/info.htm

Going back to school does have benefits. Well, benefits besides the cute co-eds.

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[Viking 0]

Fist off lemme give you these links.
Recommended scopes
Department Store Scopes are Junk.
The Different Types of Telescopes explained

Ok now that thats out of the way.

What i ment by Binoculars on a Tripod is just that. Binoculars like the Celestron Skymaster 25x100 require a tripod b/c of there weight and high power (for bino's) You can see ALOT with a pair of those.

That old Tasco to be blunt is a pile. Found the nearest Telescope store and ask for information on when the local Astronomy club is having there next Star Party. Go to that and take a peak through some of the big high end scopes that should be there. The scopes you look through at that star party will most certainly be able to see those cracy galaxies, and you will be able to see Jupiters rings and Saturns moons (i can see those moons with my bino's hand held.)

You do get interference from the atmospere. Along with Light polution from cities. But you can minimize that by finding a "dark sky" observing point. that usually means going out into the middle of nowhere. The best land base scopes are always way up in the mountains to get above as much of the atmospere as possible and to get away from city lights. The vibration you speak of is probly b/c of the low quality tripod your scope is on. Once again I urge to try to get to one of those star parties (usually planned for the night of a new moon. Right there they should be pretty big b/c its the right time of the year to Do the Messier Marathon.

you are a classic case of low quality equiptment pushing you away from the hobby. Please if your at all interested in this stuff check the star parties. There alot of fun b/c the rich people will bring out there telescopes and if you ask nicely they let you take a peak through them.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Viking 0]

the site says reflecting so it could be either a Newtonian or a Cassegrain.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[RevJim 0]

Quote

the site says reflecting so it could be either a Newtonian or a Cassegrain.

I'll let you know when I can actually use it.

All I know is it's BIG. LOL

It's your life, live it!
Karma
RB#684 "Corcho", ASK#60, Muff#3520, NCB#398, NHDZ#4, C-33989, DG#1

[Viking 0]

lol ya 16" anything is pretty fucking big.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[Viking 0]

Found this page about Tasco telescopes.

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/tasco.htm

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin