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Old April 26th 04, 03:17 PM
Jon Isaacs
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Default Beginner: Which to Buy? ETX-70 or 6" Newtonian Refractor?

So what are your thoughts everyone? I've heard tell of "apperature
fever"... so am I better off with the Orbitor 6" Newtonian? or Will I
be spending all me time trying to find things, so am I better off with
an ETX70?


My suggestion:

Hook up with your local astronomy club before buying a scope. That way you
will have an idea of what to expect before you spend you hard earned money.

As far as the two scopes go....

1, ETX-70 I don't recommend this scope, I had an earlier version and optically
it was not that good.

But mostly the problem here is limited aperture. The GOTO feature is nice but
with only 70mm of objective, those Deep sky objects will mostly be rather faint
or no existent in the eyepiece. If your skies are quite dark then things may
be somewhat better but the number one rule in this game is that aperture rules,
the bigger the objective, the more you will see.

Regarding that Orbitor 6 inch Newtonian. Without seeing one in person, it is
hard to make a judgement. A 6 inch Newtonian, if it is a good scope, could be
quite nice. While it would not point at the objects for you, at least it you
could see it if you did find it.

But for $200 Can it is quite possible that this is a scope that is not worth
owning. There are some decent Chinese scopes available these days at quite
reasonably but there are also some very poor ones such as those commonly sold
on EBay.

(I was unable to download that PDF file so I couldn't look at it.)

So, without know that the 6 inch Newt is decent, the best thing you can do is
find your local club, hook up with them and get some experience under your
belt. And someone there will be able to help you with deciding on a scope to
buy.

Jon