Spec me a telescope, please??

blastman · 6 Oct 2008 at 12:38

hey all,

I'm off to Devon in November to stay at my Dad's place. He lives in the middle of no-where so I'm hoping to do some star trails/moon shots as there is no light pollution.

Anyway, I'm after a telescope that will give me maximum zoom and picture sharpness for the budget (£100 or so). It needs to be able to fix to my 450D and be used as a standard telescope afterwards. (My dad's buying it for himself, but I'd thought I'd point him in a direction where we could both use it!)

Any ideas/suggestions/advice/opinions or anything else for that matter??

All welcome!

lord filbuster · 6 Oct 2008 at 14:06

You should be able to get a 70 or 80mm refractor for £100, but you will need to buy a couple of (cheap) adaptors to fit a slr to one. The refractors will be sharper than a reflector. if you can strech a little extra, a 90mm will pick up dimmer stars, not sure about image quality though, you'd need to try it out. The zoom is dependent on the focal length of the camera and telescope, so can't really help there. Mine is somewhere between 40x and 60x (with a sony alpha).

colinuk · 6 Oct 2008 at 14:16

Not sure on the make of telescope to get but a word of warning, i got one from germany of the bay of E's and when i attach my digital camera to it - an S2, it is in such a posistion it moves the telescope round... ended up needing another tripod to make it fit right. So make sure it can take the weight of the camera hanging of the side before buying it.

ColiN

blastman · 6 Oct 2008 at 15:05

Cheers for the advice guys.

@lord_fibuster, I'll start looking for a refractor and an adaptor to my camera.

@colinuk, I already have a tripod and was intending to use this to hold the weight of my camera!

Can anyone point me to a good FAQ so I can get an idea of setup and settings?? Also if anyone has pictures of their setup I'd really like a look, just to see how you've done it.

Cheers again

Dingleberry88 · 6 Oct 2008 at 15:14

I'd be interested in how you get on with this as it's something my Dad would like too.

blastman · 6 Oct 2008 at 15:19

Well I let you know how it goes, but I'm not going till November.

I'm just trying to do some homework before I get there so I have more time shooting and less time reading.

blastman · 6 Oct 2008 at 16:50

ok,

I've done a bit of digging about and found this telescope,

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=320307832495

Is this going to be suitable???

How would I connect my 450 to it???

Do I leave a lens on the camera??

if so whats the best size lens to use??

Or do I get some sort of bracket that connects the telescope to the lens mount??

I'm guessing that which ever way it goes, I'm going to be connecting to the eyepiece, so what sort of eyepiece should I get??

I reckon the eyepiece is like the lens on a SLR, if you've got a good body, it's still no good unless you've got a good lens.

cheers in advance!

colinuk · 6 Oct 2008 at 17:41

I had a bit of black plastic tube that came witht eh telescope that screwed into the lens slot and then onto the telescope. I had to focus with the telescope then the camera to get it to work right. was a hell of a weight, as the tube was about 5" long, with the S2 hanging off it.

Think mine was a sieben type telescope, bit bigger than the one you are looking at and didnt have the motor. Yours look ok for a starting place to be honest.

Good find with the free motor too.

Not sure what the lens bit was called - will go look for it and let you know. Found it, "T" adapters is what i got..

ColiN

lord filbuster · 6 Oct 2008 at 19:23

blastman said:
ok,

I've done a bit of digging about and found this telescope,

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=320307832495

Is this going to be suitable???

How would I connect my 450 to it???

Do I leave a lens on the camera??

if so whats the best size lens to use??

Or do I get some sort of bracket that connects the telescope to the lens mount??

I'm guessing that which ever way it goes, I'm going to be connecting to the eyepiece, so what sort of eyepiece should I get??

I reckon the eyepiece is like the lens on a SLR, if you've got a good body, it's still no good unless you've got a good lens.

cheers in advance!

You'll be better off getting one with a larger aperture, say 80mm, it will make a world of difference. The larger the focal length, the more magnification, but this is useless on a scope with a small apeture, since it wouldn't collect enough light to make the highly magnified things visible. I think you get a tmount adaptor as mention above, both for the camera and scope, and attach the camera without a lens or eyepiece. By the way, plossl type eyepieces are the best overall i find, and you should be able to get some fairly cheaply, assuming you want to observe without a camera.

blastman · 7 Oct 2008 at 15:26

Cheers for the replies guys.

I'm still a bit hazy on what I'm going to need. So far I've got...

(without lens) to connect to -->

But then what??

Does the type/make of telescope mean I'll have to find an adaptor to go from the T mount to my telescope (not that I've brought anything yet!!)

Or is there a standard that everyone uses?? Basically whats the bit called that goes between the T mount and the telescope?

Cheers for all the help so far guys. I really appreciate it

colinuk · 7 Oct 2008 at 15:42

The T mount is the bit that goes from your telescope to the camera, should have on one end the scew for the telescope and on the other end a thread for your canon camera, i think thats all you need.

blastman · 7 Oct 2008 at 16:14

colinuk said:
The T mount is the bit that goes from your telescope to the camera, should have on one end the scew for the telescope and on the other end a thread for your canon camera, i think thats all you need.

Oh, I was under the impression that you had a bit in between the T mount that fixed to the eye piece.

I'm such a n00b!!!

EsaT · 7 Oct 2008 at 22:40

lord filbuster said:
The refractors will be sharper than a reflector.

If you mean size of smallest detail telescope can show that depends entirely from size of lens/mirror. (aperture)
Refractors have better contrast than reflectors/catadioptrics... but cheap refractors can suffer from chromatic aberrations because constructing achromatic or especially apochromatic lens is more expensive. (reflector is free of that)

Also refractor's entirely closed structure requires much longer time for cooling to ambient temperature so before observing it's better to keep it outside during evening.

colinuk · 8 Oct 2008 at 12:01

blastman said:
Oh, I was under the impression that you had a bit in between the T mount that fixed to the eye piece.

I'm such a n00b!!!

To be fair, im a noob too, but my Tmount had a bit of metal about 3" long atached to it already. Maybe yours has to be ordered with it as an extra? as it seems a little small.

let me know how you get on though.

ColiN

Le_Petit_Lapin · 8 Oct 2008 at 13:33

blastman said:
ok,

I've done a bit of digging about and found this telescope,

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=320307832495

How would I connect my 450 to it???

Sorted.

blastman · 8 Oct 2008 at 13:36

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Sorted.

Yes, very good.

blastman · 15 Oct 2008 at 17:11

Update.

My dad has just brought the above telescope from the bay and is having it sent to me!!!

No doubt I'll be back with "how can I get it to work!!!"

Cheers for he advice guys. I really apprentice it!