So, are the newer computerized telescopes easy to use? My very first telescope (12 years ago) was one of the first computerized telescopes on the market, and it couldn’t find anything. I kept trying to get it to find stuff, instead of finding stuff myself, and if I hadn’t joined an astronomy club I would have given up pretty soon.
Wow!! What great answers and food for thought all of you gave!! Thanks!
** scr4 ** It’s funny that you mentioned about the difference in the city and the country, we are studying in science about this, and it was one of their recommendations, which hits back to try to make the telescope portable.
** Zor and zgystardst, ** THANKS loads for the links, and the advice. Zor, I know that that’s all that the magnification did for the telescope we have taking up space in the attic right now, except for the numbers on the license plates on the cars down the street, anything I tried to see was fuzzy. just as ** Astroboy14 ** said that it would.
** mblackwell, ** a ‘homemade Dobsonian’ telescope, do you mean your dad made it himself???
** Phobos, your’s and Athena’s ** post giving me the numbers to look for helped a lot. Isn’t it ironic though, that ‘aperture’, was NEVER mentioned any time with any salesperson that I talked with, ONLY the magnification. And yet, I DO take pictures, and am familiar with apertures making for sharper images. Too bad, I didn’t put those together a few years ago! 
** stargazer, ** the $289 price tag you quoted sounds like the telescope that I was considering before getting all these extra facts to go check BEFORE I buy this time.
But, the most helpful thing is not just checking, but also as was mentioned, my own expectations. I didn’t THINK I expected to see pictures like I own, but hey, I couldn’t find ANYTHING, so maybe I’ll think on that while just doing some regular stargazing with my binoculars for now!!
** pldennison ** I sure hope you post a thread, ‘My trip to Maui’ about all you saw [especially any volcano excursions!] for all of us who won’t ever get to go to any place so exotic!
Actually, most Dobsonians are homemade. Unless you’ve got access to some very expensive equipment, you’ve got to buy the optics, but just putting them in a tube and mounting the whole thing in a wooden box isn’t all that hard, and can save you a pretty penny. It all depends on how much of a “do it yourself” type you are. For your first one, though, you should definitely find your local astronomy club and get the guidance of someone who has already built one… There’s a lot of things you can potentially mess up, if you’re not looking out for them.
Yeah, and many times I mess up even when I AM looking for them!! Thanks Chronos.
One more idea. Have you condidered an “Astroscan” from Edmunds. It’s more than you initially wanted to spend, $299, but it is very portable, easy and intuitive to use and gets a good review in Sky and Telescope.
You can find it here, in the telescope section.
The mirror and other optics were bought somewhere. The rest of it was just a large piece of tubing and a wooden box.
- A few years back I read quite the opposite; that it wasn’t a good choice. The overall optical dimensions are very small for an obstructed reflector and you just can’t see much deep-sky stuff with it. It used to be 3.25 inches dia. with an ~.825 obstruction [not good]. It was then considered to be an old design that wasn’t very competitive with the rest of the small-telescope market. - MC
I know a couple of people who swear by the Astroscan. I used it once and it was decent, but my feeling is that a low-end Dobsonian from Meade, Celestron or Orion is a better value. The Astroscan is a bit easier to carry though.
I do have an older Orion 80mm telescope, probably similar to their current ShortTube series. I like it a lot - decent optics, great portability, and a short focal length which makes it easy to get low magnification. This is a problem with some other refractors - the focal length is so long that it’s hard to get low magnification. I use my 80mm on a heavy-duty photo tripod, which is perfect for low-power use. For planets you’d want something with smoother motion or fine adjustments (which you’d get with any equatorial or alt-azimuth mount).