want to get a telescope

I've never owned one, i dont know much about them. What kind should I look for? Dont want to break the bank, but do want to be able to hook my xt up to it.

Can anyone recommend one?

What do you want to photograph through the telescope? That would make a significant difference in what you might want to look for.

you want a newton reflector like most thing importnat the more inches the better get in contact with the nice chaps at orion optics and request a price on a cannon to telescope mount grab a cable release and have fun

if you plan to photograph the starts youll need to learn how to set up a equitorial mount
read this

buy a thick coat and have fun

i want to shoot some nice moon shots, and other planets that the telephoto lenses dont reach.

i got a Meade 10" starfinder telescope and that thing is huge! i tried taking pictures thru it by just putting the camera to the eye piece and it came out okay. i gotta get a different mount for mine to be useful. ebay here i come...

i yahoo and found this kewl one:
http://www.telescopes.​net …q-a_short_tube_refle.htm​l
really cheap too ($139)

2005GLI wrote in post #3471176
i want to shoot some nice moon shots, and other planets that the telephoto lenses dont reach.

Moon shots are easy. You can do that with just about any telescope or spotting scope that you can affix a camera to or even using a telephoto camera lens. The reason this is easy is because of the amount of light available on the Moon's surface. It's about the same as the light here on Mother Earth at noon on a cloudless day. This means that you can use a rather fast shutter speed.

Shooting photos of the planets and most other celestial objects, on the other hand, requires very long exposures. The problem with the long exposure times is that the Earth is turning. In short order, the planets and stars will look like streaks in an image taken by a camera aimed at a fixed position relative to the Earth (such as a conventional camera tripod set up on the Earth). There are solutions to this, but they aren't necessarily either easy to do or inexpensive.

To get a telescope to stay trained on an object in the sky (such as a planet) while the Earth is turning under the scope, one usually needs to have a special mount known as an equatorial mount. This mount needs to be motor driven so that the telescope rotates around an axis pointed at the north star (or an equvalent in the southern hemisphere) and rotates at precisely the same angular rate as the Earth's rotation.

Another method involves an electronic sensor in the telescope system that can control the motor drive based on keeping a star in the same position on the sensor. This kind of system does not need an equatorial mount, but uses motors for three axes of motion. This sort of system gets fairly expensive to put together. However, it is the sort of system that I would like to have. I just can't seem to find the available funding to support the idea.

SkipD summed it up beautifully.

I would suggest you try your hand at very wide angle night shots first using perhaps a fisheye or short lens just on a tripod.
Get the feel of astro and then progress to a scope once you get the basics.
Some very good astro images can be taken using the DSLR/lens setup.

Planets usually don't turn out very well using DSLR's.
Believe it or not some of the best planetary images are taken using a simple 640x480 webcam !

Once you decide you want to go further with astro you need to buy a good quality Equatorial Mount so you can mount the camera and lens or scope onto and this will need to be polar aligned to the celestial pole.
You will also need a C mount & adaptor to mount your DSLR to the scope.

Be warned though, astro photog is addictive and an expensive slippery slide.

What's your budget? If at all possible try before you buy. Attend a star party!

Personally, for astrophotography I would favour an SCT (Schmidt-Cassegrain) on a motorised GEM (German Equatorial Mount) for its versatility but this may not be in your budget and is probably overkill for what you are trying to do now.

e-k

howzitboy wrote in post #3471389
i got a Meade 10" starfinder telescope and that thing is huge! i tried taking pictures thru it by just putting the camera to the eye piece and it came out okay. i gotta get a different mount for mine to be useful. ebay here i come...

i yahoo and found this kewl one:
http://www.telescopes.​net …q-a_short_tube_refle.htm​l
really cheap too ($139)

That is really inexpensive. But how's the quality?

I have a 8mm fisheye already, I just never figured it would be good for images in the sky. As for the scope, i dont want it just for taking pics of the moon. I would like to just on a clear night just start looking out there into space. I do it now when its clear but without a scope. Meteorology and space facinate me.

its only a 4.5 inch youll be better with a 8 inch for the stars a 8 inch with a 20mm eye peice you can identify the rings of saturn clearly just to give you a idea of what the diffrent sizes will give you

For the money a Dobsonian will give you the greatest bang for your money. I'd suggest looking up a local astronomy club and joining them one night when they are observing. You'll have the opportunity to try out and see various types of setups.

If you think our glass is expensive wait until you get into astronomy!

If you are looking at taking images you might want to consider using a scope with a CCD sensor rather than trying to hook up your DSLR.

hooking up a dslr works pritty well (did my gcse in astronomy with it) just gotta get a decent mount and a cable controller to do everything

i wouldn't be doing much photography of the skies with my camera. The scope is more for my enjoyment and curiosity of the skies. The pic taking will be far and few, but I do want to be able to hook up the camera at any time and not have to worry if the scope i have will be able to work properly.

The forums at Cloudy Nights are an invaluable resource http://www.cloudynight​s.com/ -- very nice and experienced folks

Some other interesting sites:
http://www.astropix.co​m/INDEX.HTM
http://www.eclipsechas​er.com/eclink/astrotec​/aphotsmt.htm
http://home.pcisys.net​/~astrogirl/photos1.ph​p

You can actually do some very cool astrophotography using camera lenses and an inexpensive home-built mount (search for 'barndoor mount') or something like this: http://www.telescope.c​om …iSubCat=24&iPro​ductID=296 which I used with a wide angle lens to produce the image of the Milky Way I used for my avatar

This interest me alot, what the price range for a decent setup?