A few months back I started taking some moon pics with my Nikon D500 and a 200mm lens with 2x teleconverter. Here is a pic from last night;



I walked outside this past week and was able to see Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn with my naked eyes. And it was pretty freaking cool and awoke an inner nerd in me.

And now I think I might want a beginner telescope. I do not want an $80 kids scope. But I also do not want to spend $1,000. Can Sigforum help point me in the right direction?

$300 ok?

This one in Cocoa Florida is good.
I have one exactly like it.

I also have an 8" Clelstron and a 12" Meade.

https://www.facebook.com/marke...9c-a87b-0e6f568a7165

Might want to research
( google)

Digiscoping

If you're talking observing a decent Dobsonian telescope and a couple of eyepieces can get you started. If you're thinking about astrophotography it gets expensive real fast with heavy tripods and motorized mounts for tracking. There's an astronomer on You Tube named Ed Ting with videos on equipment for beginners and lots of good advice. Don't expect Hubble telescope views and there will be cloudy skies for once in a lifetime events.

What do you want to look at?

Moon, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are very bright, so a refractor is all you need. Neptune and Uranus, while nit too bright, are still in reach of small refractors.

If you want to reach out to deep space, where it is important to collect as many photons as possible, a small to medium reflector will get you most or all Messier objects and a lot of NGC objects. Also, you can still look at solar system objects, but you may need a filter due to just how bright they are.

Most people will purchase a scope, haul it out and set it up, at lost, a few times at most. Many lose interest since the views don’t look like Hubble or James Webb space telescopes. Weather also plays into the mix.

Good luck!

A monkey looked through a cockatoo's tube...
Saw Mars and even saw Jupiter too.

Burma shave.



There are some things that are the greatest memories you will ever have in life.

quote:

Originally posted by holdem:
A few months back I started taking some moon pics with my Nikon D500 and a 200mm lens with 2x teleconverter. Here is a pic from last night.

What were the camera settings on that picture?

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Might want to research
( google)

Digiscoping

Ok, that is very cool. Especially since I already own a Leopold 15-45 spotting scope that I used to use for long range shooting.

quote:

Originally posted by ftttu:
What do you want to look at?

Moon, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn are very bright, so a refractor is all you need. Neptune and Uranus, while nit too bright, are still in reach of small refractors.

If you want to reach out to deep space,

I think the first, not so much the last. I am very near downtown Orlando, so light pollution is real. I will mainly just go out to my backyard when conditions are right and I would love to get some pics.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
What were the camera settings on that picture?

ISO 100, 1/100 sec, f5.6

It was actually not dark yet, the sky still had some blue, but in exposing for the moon, the sky goes dark anyway.

I have tried the HDR setting, but I do not think there is enough range.

If I get motivated I will probably take two wildly different exposures and attempt to overlay them in Lightroom.