Very cool! I've never done any sun viewing. Don't have the filters for it. As far as taking scopes home; 4 of the six listed above are far to large to easily transport. They are all housed in a building of some sort. The largest is in a small, domed observatory. Others in a building with a slide-off roof. There are some smaller ones you can take home after you take a few (free)classes on their use and care. I never did. That's a lot of money I didn't want to be responsible for. You can poke around the site here: http://www.astrohbg.org/ASH-i/Naylor_Observatory_info.html
So... we are going to take the kids camping this year, and as a birthday present my wife bought me a small travel telescope (Celestron 70mm) for us to take along. Its more for terrestrial viewing and the tripod it came with is flimsy, but the reviews all say its a great bargain for portable viewing if you keep within its limitations. Last night I mounted it up to my wife's camera tripod (much better), and using google sky map on my phone was easily able to find Jupiter. At 40x I could see the 4 Galilean moons all strung out in a nice straight line. neat. wow. now I remember why I loved this stuff as a kid. this could be trouble. Edit: Took the kids outside to try and look at the moon since its up during day right now.
"now I remember why I loved this stuff as a kid. this could be trouble." ... don't fight it buddy... whatever you spend on bigger/better gear should be a ball for you and the kids...
Question for the experienced observers then. What's worth doing with this scope? Its a 70mm aperture 400mm focal. Came with a 45degree upright diagonal for ground viewing and no name 20mm (20x) and 10mm (40x) eyepieces. Reading online folks suggest a better tripod (done) a 90 star diagonal and one or two higher quality eyepieces with a basic filter set? Thoughts? Suggestions? For now at least I'm only interested in occasional casual viewing. We get pretty bad light pollution here, close to Boston.
Saturn will be pretty good through that, Venus will probably be tough until you get a filter, it's really bright! The moon is mind blowing even through binoculars, but pay special attention to the terminator! Also, search out the Orion Nebula (I think it's still visible in the morn).
Ok, so doing some reading on astronomy sites, to start out I ordered an inexpensive Celestron 8-24 zoom eyepiece, variable polarizing filter and a 90deg star diagonal. This seems like enough of an upgrade from the cheap lenses that came with it to get some good practice, but yet not wasting money on high end lenses that that wont make a difference on this inexpensive scope and mount. It should be enough to have some good fun with this little scope and decide how much we want to get into the hobby.
If you ever get into big scopes I can't recommend wide-view lenses enough. Really good for beginners and the more experienced that enjoys observing more than searching.
Forgot to mention, they are typically 2" lenses, bigger than you likely have on that little scope. Also, I have a nice set of celestron lenses and filters, very happy with them as my standard set, but still have several wideview lenses to augment that set. Here is the set. http://www.telescopes.com/telescope...epieces/eyepieceandfilterkit125inchformat.cfm
A lot of the hobby of Astronomy is learning details about the different celestial objects there are out there and where to find them in the sky. As a rule most of the object you might look at through a telescope like stars and nebula don't look like much, they just appear brighter through the lens, but they can be made interesting if you do a little pre-studying before going outside and finding them in the sky. The best way to go about the hobby when first starting is to dissect the sky into the constellations, learning about the name and history of each constellation, where it is in the sky and in relation to the other constellations, the name of some of the major stars and some interesting facts about them, and any other interesting objects may be located in that particular constellation. Most of that can be done just by reading about it and viewing it with your naked eye, then take the telescope and zoom in on the stars and object within the constellation itself. Some of the basic things you want to learn about is how the stars rotate around an axis, and where that axis is located in the sky. By going out every night and looking at the star Polaris in the little dipper, and seeing how Polaris can be found basically in the same spot every night, and all night, and observe how all the other stars in the sky appear to rotate around it like the hands of a clock you can teach your kids something about the sky that many people never noticed their whole lives. You can reinforce this by using your telescope at pointing it at Polaris and observe how it will remain in the field of view for a long time, where other stars closer to the equatorial plane will move out of your telescope field of view rather quickly. The next major thing to learn about is the ecliptic plane, and how the sun, moon and all the planets always move and are located in the constellations along that plane. To most people who look at the night sky all they see is a jumble of disorganized stars, they couldn't tell a star from a planet if their life depended on it, and for many that's about all they really see for their entire lives. Once you start familiarizing yourself with the constellations, the rotation of the stars around the axis in the sky, and the progressive movement of the planets along the ecliptic your will never look at the night sky the same again. A telescope is just a little icing on that cake.
Thanks guys.. yeah this is all starting to jog my memory frmo when I was a kid. I had a bunch of telescopes in the 80s but they where all junk, biggest was like a 3inch Tasco refractor on one of those flimsy tripods. I used to read Astronomy and Sky and Telescope and drool over the Celestron ads of big SCTs on fancy equatorial mounts. Dug through my boxes of old books and I found I still had an old copy of "The stargazers bible" (Kals, c1980) and my old Edmund Scientific Staf finder (c1985 with the planet locator table for '88 to '91)... Its been a while ... So to start getting back in first thing I did is grab a copy of the Backyard Astronomers Guide to read and and learn my way around. As a kid I could find Polaris and name a bunch of constellations, but I was never very good at finding specific stars in the scope... mostly just looked at the moon. I remember how bright the milky way was, but I dont think it ever gets dark enough here to see it now I agree that identifying stars and constellations is one thing I would learn first and study with the kids. Looking at all the online forums and sites I cant believe how much everything has changed since the 80s... everything is computerized now and refractors seem to have made a major come back. If/when I do decide to get a scope I think Id like to start with something manual and actually learn how to find stuff on my own, as you suggest (as a kid I always wanted to learn how to use on of those equatorial mounts, but we couldn't afford a real scope that used one). reading reading looking reading
I had an Equatorial mount once-- I hated it. I love my dobsonian-- in fact I built a dob mount to replace that Equatorial one. My big scope is a Zhummel Z10 and I am very happy with it. The price was pretty agreeable as well.
"I remember how bright the milky way was"... Yep, when we were at the old farm, we had more than a few cold nights where the milky way was so intense... just amazing to see that band of stars so clearly...
What I did to start was use an Astronomy Star Map app that is based on current location and time. The "live" app was a 100X more helpful than the normal maps and such. Most have layers so you can start off with the basic planets and constellations and then move into deep sky objects.
I have a 10" Zhumell Dobsonian. Lots of fun! I really do need to take it out more. Got hooked a few years back at a sky party while on a motorcycle trip to Utah.
