need help making a decision
- From: robv60 <mfulcher@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:41:39 -0800 (PST)
Ok, so heres my situation. I have been into astronomy pretty much
since I can remember. Never really had a telescope until recently-I'll
explain later. A few years ago I lived in a pretty good spot for
viewing the sky. REALLY good dark skies. So, I started looking at
buying an Orion xt10 scope. I never could justify the cost to myself
ans never took the plunge. My mom knowing of my interest in the stars
bought me a 80mm Newtonian scope from QVC for my birthday, god bless
her. So, I got the scope and tried using it. Needless to say, the
mount was a piece of junk and shook too much to see anything other
than the moon- and even that was a chore. The scope wasnt used again
out of frustration. Sooooo, I bought a pair of 15x70 binocs and built
myself a parallelogram binoc mount. It worked great and I enjoyed
looking at the few things I could see until I became somewhat bored
trying to find things and being let down with the views I was able to
get with them. I craved more. Still, I could not justify the cost of
the big scope. Fast forward ~three years and the astronomy bug has hit
me again. I started to look at the orion scopes again then I thought,
"you know, The optics in my 'dust collecting scope' aren't that bad,
maybe it just needs a better mount." SO, I have since began building a
dobsonian mount for it. I havent been able to use it yet of course
because it isnt finished-Im waiting on some flocking material to line
the scope with and a collimating eyepiece to arrive before I can use
it. Meanwhile, I am saving my money and still considering one of the
orion scopes. Either the 8 or 10 inch scope. The problem is that I no
longer live at the same place, about a 15-20 minute drive away. The
sky around my house isn't great, a little light pollution. I am no
longer in a position where I could have a 10" scope and simply take it
outside to use it. Id have to haul that monster around, so I have been
considering the next best thing, the orion XT8 . Now I know the 10"
will collect more light than the 8", which makes it potentially worth
the extra cost/trouble but they are both still rather large. However I
feel that if Im going to haul a large scope 15-20 minutes away, set it
up and wait for the mirror to cool down,etc., it would be more worth
the trouble to have the 10" for the views it would provide over the
8". So Im stuck making a decision between the two. Now, given all of
that, I still have my little 80mm Galileo "P.O.S" reflector on its new
Dob mount and I am wondering----given the driving distance and all
that would be involved with setting up one of the orion scopes, even
though I would be able to see much more, would I be better served if I
spent my saved money on better eyepieces for the small scope?
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: need help making a decision
- From: robv60
- Re: need help making a decision
- Prev by Date: Re: Only perpetual motion describes dark matter
- Next by Date: Re: If that asteroid hits mars..
- Previous by thread: Only perpetual motion describes dark matter
- Next by thread: Re: need help making a decision
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
|
