What type of telescope for photographing the moon etc?

[fuzzy]

I have some pennies to spend post christmas and am thinking of a telescope. My thoughts are to get one that will take a camera mount but, the main question, reflector or refractor?

Any points for a reasonable starter moon/ stargazer scope for around £100?

Thanks all.

[David Martin]

That question is surely a bit like asking for an entry level bike around the £150 mark..

[fuzzy]

That is the thing with being a less than clueless amateur.......
I saw this on Amazon. does it look like a useable for a beginner?

I want to try something to see if I can do the looking and photographing in a passable manner. This is with a view to upgrading in the future if I can achieve results that satisfy me.

[fuzzy]

Here is another I found at Jesse's. Same price but reduced. What is the better scope (if either is better)?

I know these are annoying questions but, I have absolutely no idea about optics for astronomy. I don't know what I should be looking for in relation to aperture, magnification, focal length etc.

Sorry for being a reet doofus.

[David Martin]

Bit of a reet amateur myself, but these are sold by the local observatory and reckoned to be good beginner kit. So a good choice. If you want to do stars rather than just the moon. (The moon is in bright sunlight so f16 and 1/iso is a good starting point for the settings which should cope with the speed it travels.) then splash out for the 130 MD with the motor drive. If you have set it up pointing to the North Star then it will keep things moving correctly so there are no trails in the photos and allows for much longer exposures.

Paging Helly-Medic's David to the white courtesy phone with pictures of saturn on it..

[jsabine]

As someone with no knowledge whatsoever of telescopes or astronomy, my gut feeling is that you're probably best off finding a local astronomy group or club and chatting upto some of their members with a view to fondling their equipment ...

Lo and behold, google turns up the Wycombe Astronomical Society, who just happen to be having a telescope evening on Jan 5th if you can get over to Amersham. (Also the Herschel AS in Slough/Eton, Reading AS, and no doubt many more.)

(And I think the good Dr Martin may have missed out a link from his post above.)

[hellymedic]

My David agrees with the good Dr Martin about comparison with £150 bike.

Says @virtualastro on Twitter has useful info this time of year. He suggests his metorwatch.org

widescreen-centre.co.uk sell good stuffs.David suggests 70-80mm refractor like Skywatcher Mercury 707 or next up.
Suggests for that money avoid computerised & equatorial mounts.

[T42]

The mirrors in cheap refractors are generally spherical rather than parabolic, and won't form a clean image of stars etc. but should be OK for the moon.  Cheap refractors might give you a bit of chromatic aberration.

To hook up to an SLR you'll need a T2 adapter ring to fit the camera mount and a T2-to-focussing-tube adapter for the scope, or for a compact you can cobble up your own to fit straight onto the eyepiece. The weight of a camera might be too much for the scope mount, though.

[fuzzy]

I managed to talk my darling wife into giving me an advance on my birthday and have opted for one of these.

Cant wait for it to arrive

[Vince]

Is this why the star lit nights of earlier in the week have been replaced by ten tenths cloud?

[fuzzy]

My bad

[fuzzy]

I have had my scope for just under a month now and it has seen action. On it's First Light we did some lunar observing which, with the eyepiece kit included (1.25 inch 25mm, 10mm and X2 Barlow) I got some excellent sights. I also had a result with my searching for The Andromeda Galaxy as I found it on my first attempt (not found it since however).

All in all, a very satisfying purchase with at least half a dozen outings.

[hellymedic]

AstroFest this coming Friday/Saturday with droolworthy sales stands, Kensington Town Hall.
Just sayin' like...

[fuzzy]

Bank Manager says no

[hellymedic]

Wish I could make domestic prohibitions...

Partner is attending one session for the talks, in theory...

[fuzzy]

Hide his cards so he can't take them.......

[hellymedic]

Seldom buys things on his card.

Has other means of extracting cash.

Might persuade him to go to London Die-In so that during AstroFest lunch break he is doing Other Things.

[Riggers]

So what sort of image will it give you, if you're directing it into your neighbour's window at night!?

[fuzzy]

An arresting image?

[trekker12]

Quite a blurry one at that range, being designed for astronomical units.

For that you are better off with more standard binoculars

(I would think)

[T42]

So what sort of image will it give you, if you're directing it into your neighbour's window at night!?

A perverted one, unless you have an erector lens.

[PaulR]

AstroFest this coming Friday/Saturday with droolworthy sales stands, Kensington Town Hall.
Just sayin' like...

Oh no!  Mrs R is away all weekend with her choir, and now I know Astrofest is happening, I can foresee all sorts of trouble ahead!

[fuzzy]

AstroFest this coming Friday/Saturday with droolworthy sales stands, Kensington Town Hall.
Just sayin' like...

Oh no!  Mrs R is away all weekend with her choir, and now I know Astrofest is happening, I can foresee all sorts of trouble ahead!

We won't tell her if you don't.

[LEE]

Question.  Why do people like taking photos of the Moon?

I consider myself an amateur photographer and I don't understand the attraction of filling the frame with an image of something it's impossible to distinguish from someone else's image.

I love Astro-photography when, for example, the Milky Way can be seen in context of a stunning landscape.  I also understand the amazement of star-gazing through a telescope, seeing it Live so to speak (if we ignore the speed of light of course).

I just don't get the attraction of photographing an image where there's no artistic merit as such, where it's simply a matter of amassing the correct (and often expensive) equipment.

Not saying there's anything wrong with it, just that don't understand where the satisfaction is.

[trekker12]

Because it's nearly always different. Different position in the sky, season, light effects. All of which combine to highlight areas that may not be visible during one session appear during the next.

I agree there's a limit to this as it's a fairly predictable partner in our sky but as a complete amateur at this sort of stuff (and the reason my pics don't appear anywhere for others to view) it's a good starting point for other celestial photography which I suspect is where the OP comes in.

Big frame pictures of the milky way with some earth scenery in frame are great but don't show enough detail for me, you can't see other galaxies or nebula, it's just a light of twinkling lights. As a novice the detailed far away stuff seems to be where some of the skill comes in but for real detail you do seem to need more expensive kit than I have access to and I spend all my money on bike stuff.