Telescope for a beginner

[TomK]

Thanks for all the info, Dan, much appreciated and am sure Peter will find the information useful as well. I would definitely delay a decision on buying a telescope until you've had a chance to talk to some experienced amateur astronomers (plus they may have some decent ones for sale). Binoculars are a good way to get used to observing the sky and finding objects but anything larger than 7 X 50 really needs a tripod. They also have a large field of view so are forgiving when trying to find something in the sky.

I haven't bought a pair of binoculars for a long time now, still have an excellent German pair I inherited from my father (10 x 50) but I know good ones could be mounted on a tripod. I don't know if that's always the case with modern binoculars.

[dan d]

Mine are 10 x 70,s I last had them out on my sturdy tripod at halemaumau a week before she blew and let everyone at Jaeger museum ooo and ahhhh with them. They show moon ,jupiter the caldera,orion nebula,whales,girls on the beach ,lol.

I have a 120 refractor on a german equatorial mount, it tracks the objects very well, i can get 20 minutes on one exposure and get a lot of data for a stacked shot. Astrophotgraphy, it cool. While im doing an exposure i will set up my binocs and watch stars,satellites, comets and shooting stars,nebulas, planets,in between shots. Very quiet and peacefull


HPP

[birdmove]

A nice thing about binoculars is, you can lay back on a reclining lawn chair and use them from that position, and they are always at the ready and require no setup other than focusing.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[randomq]

Wow I need to go to one of these meetings and get some pointers, I've never seen that much detail from similar binoculars.

[KiminPL]

How interesting! Thank you all for the info, especially about the club. Sounds fun.