What's a good telescope for ~$10k?
- Thread starter ManSnake
- Start date
Is this a joke? Are you wanting to look at planets, or for exoplants? If the latter, you're going to need a lot more than a telescope. You will not be able to find any exoplanets through visual work alone; rather, you'll need an array of CCD cameras, mounts, software, filters, etc. Many people spend upwards of $25k on these setups, and I don't think they have the capabilities of even indirectly observing the influence of exoplanets on their stars.
sorry to dissappoint, but Ive climbed teh mountain and havent seen any planets.
but seriously, I remember one guy here that was good with high end telescopes...he commented on a hot deal involving telescopes. forgot his name though.
but seriously, I remember one guy here that was good with high end telescopes...he commented on a hot deal involving telescopes. forgot his name though.
the world's greatest scientists with the world's most expensive equipment have barely found a handfull of planets not in our solar system. don't expect to be finding one any time soon with some silly telescope
but if you mean looking at planets in our solar system, well ok then
but if you mean looking at planets in our solar system, well ok then
yhelothar
Lifer
- Dec 11, 2002
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I think the Butlers just have one of those schmidt cassegrains with the CCDs.
All you need is to take a lot of images to look for the wobbling of stars.
The gravatational pull of the planets on the stars will cause the stars to wobble. That's how the Butler's(a couple who are the first and the pioneers in discovering extra-solar planets) discovers them.
Yeah, I know how they're discovered, but that's the problem: You need a lot more than just a typical telescope and a camera to be able to detect arseconds of movement, in most cases. I'm merely trying to express the fact that there's simply no way to detect the movement visually, and there's simply no way you can do it with low-end equipment (namely the low-end mounts). Once you get into CCD work you're talking about a much more considerable investment.
I'll look into the SCTs with CCDs as you mentioned. I'm not familiar with those...
yhelothar
Lifer
- Dec 11, 2002
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Get adaptive optics. It uses a special corrective lensing to compensate for the atmospheric distortion. Very advanced systems will shoot a laser beam and it will be connected to a computer that will read the atmospheric distortion and will electronically control a mirror to compensate for it. But they found that using elliptical lens provide the same effect without all those high tech gadgets.
Get the 7inch apochromatic refractor from Meade costing around $8000 IIRC.
LOL! You're not very caught up in astronomy, are you? Do some looking around and educate yourself. There are well over 100 confirmed.
Umm, then spend $500, get an 80ED from Orion, and invest in a lot of high-quality TeleVue eyepieces.
That is all you need.
Planetary observation doesn't require anywhere near the investment you are talking. Planetary astrophotography is very inexpensive as well: Web cameras, digital cameras with ScopeTronix adapters, etc. These will all give you photographic quality images of planets with proper technique and practice.
Seriously, $10k is insane for planetary work. Get a small apochromatic refractor and invest in high-quality eyepieces (e.g. get a Williams Optics diagonal, a TeleVue barlow, some TeleView eyepieces, etc.). You're looking at $1000 for a fantastic planetary setup.
[edit]I should note that you'll need a substantial amount if you wish to do any astrophotography. Pictured here are two of my mounts, and the left one is barely suitable for long-exposure astrophotography (It runs ~$800-$900). The setup on the right is for visual work only, and it's a great planetary scope. Look into spending at least $1000 on a mount if you have astrophotography ambitions.[/edit]
You can easily see Jupiter, Saturn at night. Venus and Mercury can be seen around Sunset and Sunrise, though Mercury can be a bit difficult. The other planets are too dim to be seen.
Resolution isn't an issue with the planets. The 80mm apo isn't for deep sky by any means, but it's fantastic for planets. You'll exhaust your resolution due to poor atmospheric conditions long before you'll experience enough light loss in the 80mm apo to compromise resolution (e.g. we're talking maybe 200-300x here with a high-quality eyepiece and diagonal).
Yes, I agree that he should be able to fully utilize an 8", but he could also fully utilize a 30". He said he wanted a planetary scope, and there's nothing better, imo, than a small apo refractor. The extra aperture simply is not needed, and it's a pain to haul around as well.
Also, remember that a larger scope will require a larger mount just to be stable enough for visual work. He could go with a cheaper mount and the 80ED and have a suitable beginning astrophotography setup. For an 8" he'd have to have, at a minimum, one of the larger mounts; and, that's just for visual work. For astrophotography he'd likely be looking at a Losmandy GM8 or greater for suitable work.
What are you talking about? To the naked-eye?
I can see Saturn's rings in my 60mm astro binoculars at 12x!
- Oct 26, 2000
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A few more questions, what would my expectation be for looking at deep space objects like nebulae and things like that? With a regular telescope, would I be able to make out the details of say Saturn's surface patterns? Would stars appear as a bright dot no matter how powerful my telescope or eyepiece is?
btw I am not planning on doing any astrophotography.
btw I am not planning on doing any astrophotography.
This is where you are confused.
Resolution is directly related to a telescope's aperture; in other words, it's light-gathering ability. If you double the aperture, you theoretically double its resolving power. In practice this is rarely the case, because the larger the mirror/lens the more difficult it is to fashion one free of errors.
With the smaller scopes you're limiting yourself to star clusters (e.g. M45--easy naked-eye object), some of the brighter nebulae (e.g. M42, Orion's Nebula--you can actually see this with the naked-eye quite easily), etc.
So, a large-aperture scope would be best for deep-sky objects. Unfortunately, most of these scopes are reflectors, and as such they have shorter focal lengths than your typical refractor. What this means is you'll have a lower power scope, and therefore a lesser ability to magnify planetary features. This is precisely why I recommended an apo refractor.
Absolutely! The key is being able to magnify the image enough without compromising the resolution to the point where details are lost. The telescopes I mentioned will not experience such loss, and you will be able to see the detail beautifully. More often you are countered by atmospheric distortions, and this is called "bad seeing." It also depends on proper collimation of your scope (more important in a reflector), quality of eye-pieces (low-quality eyepieces exhibit a lot of optical errors in most cases), quality of mount (if it's windy and your mount is unstable you'll have a hard time seeing details), etc.
Well, an increase in aperture == an increase in light-gathering ability, so while you might not be able to notice a difference in brightness in some stars, you would be able to see more stars with a larger aperture. You're talking deep-sky and not planetary, and low-power large-aperture scopes win.
Also, depending on the telescope the stars might not appear as dots at all. Reflectors mount a secondary mirror in front of the primary mirror, and the vanes used to support this mirror cause diffraction patterns that you can see. This makes them look like huge crosses and not dots.
You'll save a lot of money then. You could get the 80ED I mentioned and mount it on a Bogen tripod with a Bogen head and have a fantastic setup. TeleVue has a fantastic setup called the Tele-Pod. You could probably buy this head from AstroMart and mount it on a Bogen tripod.
For what you require you simply do not need to go beyond that which I mention. You do not need an equatorial mount, you do not need anything close to 8", and you don't even need that fantastic a mount either since the smaller scopes are so light. Spend the extra money in high-quality eyepieces.
Jezzus if you are going to blow that amount of cash on a telescope why do you donate it to my charity fund 
Ausm
Ausm
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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Can't agree with you on some things Decartes. I have an 8" old old Celestron SCT. If you find a $500 scope that equals it for planetary observation, I want to see it, and I have looked through dozens of scopes.
To address the OP, you are not going to be hauling a 10k scope up a mountain. It's going to be too large and heavy. You are also not going to just look at planets with a scope of that quality. You will be looking at nebula, double stars etc.
When looking at most planets, resolution is an issue. You cannot expect to see much detail with an 80mm objective in Saturn's rings or the atmospheric bands of Jupiter. While it is true that these details can't be seen in a scope of any size if the "seeing" (viewing conditions) are bad, when they are good it's wonderful. It's the serendipity amateur astronomers love
Resolution can be roughly determined by the empiric Dawes Limit. You divide 4.56 by the diameter of the mirror or objective lens and that gives you the best resolution you can expect to get with that apeture.
Newtonian reflectors rarely achieve this because of air currents in the open tube, and because of certain distortions inherent in most reflector designs. A good apochromatic refractor can sometimes best this in ideal conditions, but that is rare.
In other words, for a given optical quality, apeture is your friend. If "seeing" is an issue, the old time remedy of stopping down the opening helps.
BTW, the ability to gater light is not directly related to resolution as demonstrated by the fact that a good neutral density filter does not lower the resolution of a telescope.
To address the OP, you are not going to be hauling a 10k scope up a mountain. It's going to be too large and heavy. You are also not going to just look at planets with a scope of that quality. You will be looking at nebula, double stars etc.
When looking at most planets, resolution is an issue. You cannot expect to see much detail with an 80mm objective in Saturn's rings or the atmospheric bands of Jupiter. While it is true that these details can't be seen in a scope of any size if the "seeing" (viewing conditions) are bad, when they are good it's wonderful. It's the serendipity amateur astronomers love
Resolution can be roughly determined by the empiric Dawes Limit. You divide 4.56 by the diameter of the mirror or objective lens and that gives you the best resolution you can expect to get with that apeture.
Newtonian reflectors rarely achieve this because of air currents in the open tube, and because of certain distortions inherent in most reflector designs. A good apochromatic refractor can sometimes best this in ideal conditions, but that is rare.
In other words, for a given optical quality, apeture is your friend. If "seeing" is an issue, the old time remedy of stopping down the opening helps.
BTW, the ability to gater light is not directly related to resolution as demonstrated by the fact that a good neutral density filter does not lower the resolution of a telescope.
Where did I say equals? Your SCT sans focal reducer has the capacity for greater resolution and magnification, but show me atmospheric conditions that allows such use. I have the Celestron 9.25" SCT carbon fiber OTA mounted on my Celestron Advanced Series GT mount, so I can directly compare both. I also have my reflector, but for planetary work an 80-100mm apo is perfect.
Very true.
When looking at most planets, resolution is an issue. You cannot expect to see much detail with an 80mm objective in Saturn's rings or the atmospheric bands of Jupiter. While it is true that these details can't be seen in a scope of any size if the "seeing" (viewing conditions) are bad, when they are good it's wonderful. It's the serendipity amateur astronomers love
False. More to come...
It should be noted that the 4.56 is for the aperture in inches, not mm. The 80mm will give you enough resolution to see Cassini's Division on Saturn. I can easily observe atmospheric conditions on Jupiter as well.
Indeed.
We'll have to agree to disagree. If he's simply wanting to spend as much money as possible to acquire a panacean solution for all possible conditions, then I agree. I'm simply stating that, for planetary visual work, there's no need whatsoever to seek such an extreme solution.
I'm too tired to keep arguing all of this. Here.
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