After getting a small scope last summer, I'm thinking of getting something a little more.... contemporary.... Something sensitive enough to spot, track and photograph nebulas... After somepreliminary research, it looks like I'm going to be spending about $3,000 to $5,000. Any suggestions? Any cool targets this summer? What about care of the equipment? Should I even bother? I live in New York.... is the light pollution going to render my purchase useless? Basically, I want someone to talk me out of it.
Put it this way, I live in a small American city and the light pollution makes my telescope moot. I'd contact your local astronomy club/planetarium for more information, they're far more equipped for this question.
Aim at the middle star in Orion's sword, and you can get the Orion nebula, along with a group of 4 bright stars known as some damn thing or other- I can't remember right now and I don't have my astronomy software loaded on my laptop.
The single most important thing, by miles, is not the size of the scope, but its ability to track the sky. Even with a 30 inch $50,000 job you cant take a single nebula shot. What you want is one of the newer gps scopes from one of the more established companies like Celestron or Meade (which is what i would choose). The only data it will need to perfectly track the sky is your height above sea level. Each time you switch it on it will locate and right itself within seconds, then it will track any object you look at, or it will find and track any of the 130,000 or so stored objects in the on board computer (you can update this data whenever you want over the net) My advice would be, buy the most expensive Meade LX GPS model you can afford
I live about 75 miles north of NYC... I can drive about 10 miles and it's straight up rural farmland. I've actually scouted an area already that I think will be perfect.... Pitch black a night except forthe stars. There are astronomy clubs?
The four closely packed/bright stars in the Orion Nebula are known as the Trapezium- just remembered.
Umm, a black man, in the middle of the field when it's pitch black out at night? The replies to this post are many and varied, but I'll just ask: is this your property? Any potential dangers, such as wolves and bears? (Or the KKK, but you're in the north, haw haw.)
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/community/groups/ http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Astronomy/Amateur_Astronomy/Organizations/Clubs/
