h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Santa has offered to get me this telescope for Christmas.

http://readersoffers.ie/rcart/viewprod.asp?ID=1794&roID=4

Is it worth it? I don't know a lot about optics, so if I had this telescope, how much detail would I be able to make out? Would I be able to see the moons of Jupiter, or would it just make the moon look a little bigger?

(By the way, I live in Ireland, so the shipping fees would be minimal.)

Hi Apollyon,

On first glance it looks good. It's a solid looking equatorial mount telescope so it would be good for photography and ideal for serious astronomy. You should be able to see a lot too - the rings on Saturn, the moons and bands of Jupiter and even possibly details on Mars should will be easy objects to find. (Actually the moons of Jupiter are visible through a regular pair of binoculars, so that's not saying much). The telescope should also be good for much fainter objects - galaxies, nebulae, planetary nebulae and star clusters etc. You should even be able to spot some of the bigger asteroids with it if you know where to look.

The only slight downside is the name - I haven't heard of Meridian so much: Meade and Celestron are the big names in telescopes. Maybe others have some experience of these scopes though.

The other thing is that equatorial mount telescopes are a bit more complicated to operate compared to very simple telescopes, but it's worth the effort to learn how to use it properly.

I use a GOTO telescope which is totally computerised: it makes star-gazing very easy, but the compromise is optical strength: for the same price as a 3" GOTO you can probably get a 4" equatorial - or that sort of thing.

I don't think it's very good value at all. You can buy a similar 4.5inch reflector for around £100. Not sure exactly how that converts to Euro, but i'm sure 369euro is an outragious sum for this scope.

Ignore the magnification specs- you can pay thousands of pounds and still 'only' get 2-300x magnification. Truly naff retailers will always quote stupidly big magnifications to make their instruments seem better than they are.

The thoeretical magnification quoted is achieved by dividing the focal length of the scope 900mm in this case, by whatever eyepiece you are using. To achieve the quoted magnification it looks as if they supply a 3mm eyepiece and then expect you to put it in a 2x barlow lense You would see a precisely nothing with this set-up. (the higher the magnification the darker the image, the more every little vibration is magnified and the smaller the field of view. Even looking at the moon you would see a wobbly dark blurry image.

Type 'astroscopes' or 'astronomical telescopes' into google and buy from a reputable supplier- one that specialises in optics rather than the likes of e-bay, would be your best bet. Look for as large a mirror as you can afford. 369 euro should get you a 6 or even maybe an 8inch reflector, or a smaller instrument, say 4.5inch, but with motor drive or computer control- neither of which this scope has.

Oh, sorry Woodpigeon- seem to have contradicted you somewhat!

My main truck with this 'offer' is the price. I'm sure much more can be found for that money. If 369 euro converts to about £250 or so, then something like the Explorer 150pl shown half way down this page http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=20 would be a much better buy.

You can also upgrade by adding a motor to these scopes, which will track objects against the earth's rotation on a corectly positioned telescope.

This, and an equatorial mount is not so much a luxury as a necessity to prevent massive frustration during use. Alt-azimuth (up and down, left and right moving) mounts are only really of use if you live on the equator or the north/south pole, otherwise the night sky 'moves' in a diagonal fashion, which you need an equatorial mount to follow.

Slightly less intuitive to use at first as you say, but much easier in the long run!

I wouldn't touch a 4.5 in reflector that costs 100 pounds with a greasy bargepole - think how much a decent single reflex camera costs.
It's the quality of the optics you are paying for, and personally I think $369 sounds very cheap (and possibly nasty) too. It all depends on your budget, but a decent pair of binoculars are better than a poor telescope.

My father bought a really really good reflecting telescope a few years back with a six inch mirror and it cost him several thousand pounds.

OK, here is where I (slightly) retract that, here is Patrick Moore's advice page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/myspace/nightsky/telescopes.shtml

Your target telescope seems to be about right in price - although possibly still slightly low - according to his price guide.

Well far be it from me to disagree with Patrick Moore he does have a reputation for knowing a thing or two about astronomy though i suspect his prices could be a little out of date- good mirror and mount prices have come down a lot in recent years thanks mainly to the Japanese learning how to build really good ones (which have been well reviewed).

Certainly the Skywatcher range i linked to have been reviewed well in many publications and i know of one uni. astronomy professor who bought one!

I don't mean to sound like a no-it-all, it's just that my impression from looking at that advert, and also by the description, that this is going to fall into the 'nasty' territory- I wouldn't particularly recommend buying a £100 job, i was just saying, that to me this scope looks like the ones that sell at that price, and hence it is overpriced.

The mount itself looks rather thin and flimsey - solid ones are usually much thicker. Obviously, there's a limit to what can be gleamed from an advert, but it's just my impression

I think I agree with what everyone else has said.
To get an idea of what is out there get hold of an astronomy magazine and take a look at the adverts or websites of the astro retailers. You should be able to get yourself a better deal than that one from one of the shops in the UK or Ireland.