Limerick Astronomy Club

Hello All,

I am new to the forum and have a few questions about buying my first telescope.
A little background... I borrowed a pair of good quality binoculars and a tripod during the summer to observe Jupiter. I subsequently moved on to finding star clusters and some deep sky objects. Unfortunately I have had to return the binoculars, but feel I am ready for my first telescope. I have a limited understanding of the equipment available and there seems to be an overwhelming variety to choose from.

Any suggestions or reccommendations would be appreciated. I'm on a limited budget and have between 300-400 euro to spend. I was thinking of a Celestron Omni XLT 150. If anyone has any experience of this scope I would appreciate some feedback. Will I need different eyepieces or a barlow lens?

Many thanks in advance.
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan

Welcome to the SAC forums.
The Omni 150 xlt would be a fine starter scope. See the review on cloudy nights below

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ ... in/3124766

Do shop around when buying though to get the best deal. Have a look at

www.telescope-service.com

www.telescopehouse.com

Skywatcher make pretty good scopes for a reasonable price also. If you can push to a 200mm diameter scope you won't regret it.

regards
John

Hi Jonathan.

Welcome aboard.

You can get a lot of value now for 300 Euro for a scope.
I suppose the first question you need to ask yourself is what kind
of observing do you want to do.
A hard one to answer if you have not looked through many scopes before.

I know you are unable to attend the meetings but you are absolutely
more than welcome to come along to any of our observing sessions
and have a look through ours.
This should give you a good idea of what is best for what.

I'd also say that Lidl each year run a great offers on scopes.
I'm not talking about the smaller go-to ones,
they are little better than toys,
but they do sometimes offer bigger scopes which are great.

Also don't overlook the benefits of a simple Dobsonian.
For 300 Euro you would get big aprature for relatively little cost.
All the go-to and electronic gizmos are nice but size matters!

Also...
a good link here
http://www.telescope-service.com/news/e ... vents.html