Buying a Telescope possibly tonight.

I will hopefully be going to check out a telescope tonight. The guy says it's a Meade 8" Telescope with a tracking system. Sorry the pic isn't all that great (from a Craigslist ad).

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as long as your adapter fits into where the eyepiece goes it should be fine...you should double check on the size of adapter though. I'm not completely sure, but I would think most adapters would be the 1.25" (common size), as opposed to the bigger 2" size (most 2" focusers come w/ adapters for 1.25" eyepieces i think).

Double check that it isn't the older .965" size though...I don't think it's really used much, except for maybe the cheap entry level (department store) telescopes.

Actually, if you are using 2 adapters (adapter to pentax and then adapter to canon), you may want to buy a new adapter...having too many adapters may make it bigger/longer than it should be and harder to reach focus (not close enough to the telescope). I suppose you could always check first before you go and spend money on an adapter you may not need though...

What you normally need are 2 things: A T-ring and a T-adapter. The T-adapter goes into the eyepiece, while the T-ring screws on the adapter and attaches to your camera. You want to get the appropriate T-ring for your camera, obviously. It seems that there are multiple different T-adapters you can get...either the specific one for your telescope, or a 1.25" universal one.

I don't know if the other ones are larger (maybe made for 2" focusers), but if you have a 2" focuser, I would think that getting a 1.25" adapter may cause vignetting. I'm not sure though, as I don't have a telescope and no experience w/ these adapters at this time.

If you have the model number of the telescope, then you should be able to search for that specific type and get a t-adapter and t-ring from meade. Otherwise, you should be fine w/ a universal (1.25") t-adapter.

Hopefully other people w/ actual experience will chime in as well

ohata0 wrote in post #13823482
What you normally need are 2 things: A T-ring and a T-adapter. The T-adapter goes into the eyepiece, while the T-ring screws on the adapter and attaches to your camera. You want to get the appropriate T-ring for your camera, obviously. It seems that there are multiple different T-adapters you can get...either the specific one for your telescope, or a 1.25" universal one.

Actually that's what I have. I have the T-Adapter and I have the T-Ring for both cameras. One for the Pentax and one for the Canon. After measuring the smaller end of the T-Adapter I see it's 1" in diameter. Is this the right thing to measure or should I measure the inside which is slightly larger. I had an eye piece from my old telescope in this adapter. It's diameter appears to be 1" so maybe I have the older style as you mentioned. I'll probably have to buy a new T-Adapter for it. I will bring this with me and try it out so I know if I'll have to buy one or not. I'm hoping to be able to use this tonight or tomorrow with the camera.

Here are some photos of the adapter I have for my Canon.

All together the length is just under 4". Looks a little dirty in there. It's not. Must not be polished in there or something.

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That looks about LX5 vintage (1980's or 90's). I have one of those. Check for mould on the inside (mirror and front glass). That's a bit of a deal killer. You'll probably find that you have to wind the focus knob a long way to get focus with your adapter. Otherwise, you should be OK with it. The scope has a long focal length and not a very stable mount for DSO stuff. Great for piggy backing your DSLR and for moon/planets.
There's plenty of cheap second hand stuff for these scopes as they were popular for 20+ years. They are a pretty good all-round visual scope and I've chosen to keep mine even though I've bought new mounts and scopes since then.

He sent it out to be cleaned and should be picking it up today hopefully. I will have a look at it tonight if it's clear outside. Would I be able to detect any mold, mildew if I brought a flashlight to look at it?

It's probably too late now as you may already own it.
Mold looks like spiders web and if it's there, you'll see it with a flashlight.

Got an email from the guy. He got it back and he says it's so clean now he's having second thoughts about selling it so it must be pretty clean. Hopefully he'll still want to sell it.

Well, I haven't heard from this guy so I'm assuming he wants to keep it. So I went to the Orion Telescope website and found this one.

http://www.telescope.c​om …c/-1/c/1/sc/14/p/9912.uts

It has the Go To tracking system which looks pretty cool. It's only $49 more than what this guy was asking for his used one... Is this a good telescope or is there a better one? $450 - $500 is around the amount I want to spend.

It's pretty limiting. That mount style doesn't cope to well with the added weight of a DSLR and the scope is a bit small/slow for deep sky stuff. It would OK for moon and larger planets. It would be a good first scope for visual use. Reasonably portable, easy to setup and help to guide you around.
If you are tempted by the photography side and are looking for a first stepping stone, I would suggest buying something used from one of the astronomy forums like Cloudy Nights or Astromart. They are pretty helpful communities which means that you will get something that suits your needs, rather than taking an uneducated punt on Craigslist or eBay.