Darn! Starlord beat me to it. Then again, it IS his site.
Start he
http://home.inreach.com/starlord
Read the whole thing. It explains a lot and there are some tradeoffs
you need to make right off the back. You have some conflicting
desires. This isn't good or bad, it just is. Some specific answers
(they are NOT a substitute for reading the above) are below.
I'm interested in buying a telescope for DSO.
Stop right here. This means aperature, the more the better. In a
bang for buck world, you are now talking Dob, 8" and up.
My main use would be
educating my kids, showing friends and family and exploring random
spots, maybe find my own comet. Let me dream =) I would also like to
do astrophotography using a web cam.
Stop again. Astrophotography and "Dob" don't mix. You are now
talking about something mounted on an aligned mount, preferably with
some kind of tracking (or a software field derotater).
I understand aperture is the most
important thing.
Not necessarily. This depends on what you want to look at. For
DSO's, you are right. You want light gathering power.
But I want a portable system I can put in the back of
my midsize suv and setup by myself. I'm in the military so it would be
packed up and shipped every 3+ years. So it would need to be rugged.
Although I only have 8 years left till I retire I might be better off
waiting on the massive aperture scope. Thoughts?
Careful packaging. Seriously. Almost any telescope will survive this
given a little care.
I'm considering the Meade ETX-125PE since it looks good for
portability and web cam astrophotography. Plus it should be ready to
use pretty quickly. It appears to be fairly rugged compared to other
designs.
A bit small for serious DSO observing.
Dobs look good for the price. But they are so cheap which sort of
scares me. Also the mount system looks like I have to manually move
the scope which could make finding DSO a real burden. Is this correct?
Astrophotography possible with these?
First, the cheap price is the idea. They are a quality optical system
in a simple case and mount. All your money goes into optics and
nothing into frills. DO NOT be scared of dobs. Finding DSO's in a
dob isn't a problem once you learn the sky. The very best telescopes
I see for observing DSO's are high end, large dobs.
Oh, but you can pretty well forget astrophptography with these.
Truss mounts like teeters telescopes planet killers look very tempting
due to the huge apertures. Has anyone used these? Are they worth it?
Can 1 person set these up alone? Are these manual moving only? Can you
do astophotography with these scopes?
This kind of depends on the size. remember, most truss mount scopes
are just dobs with a different tube design. Most are manual moving
only (you can automate them, but it is expensive) and how many people
it takes to set them up depends on the size. The primaries tend to be
VERY heavy.
Oh, and you can pretty well forget astrophotography with these.
I do apologize I'm just lost in all this. Does anyone have any other
suggestion or know a website that has plenty of reviews?
My suggestions:
1. First, read StarLord's article.
2. Find a local astronomy club. If you are in the San Diego Area,
check out the SDAA website. If you are elsewhere, let us know where
and we can try to hook you up with somebody. Check out as many
telescopes as you can, look through them, and ask questions. Figure
out what you might be interested in by looking through scopes to the
greatest extent possible.
3. As for your needs, depending on the price you are looking at, I
would suggest:
a. A SCT in the 8-10 inch class. I'd mount it on a GEM, but the
forks work as well if you don't mind dealing with a wedge once you
want to do photography. These will be a bit more expensive, but are
relatively small and easy to handle. This would be something like can
be seen he
http://www.celestron.com/prod_pgs/tel/c914sgt.htm
This type of scope is very popular and comes in a wide variety of
flavors.
b. A newtonian reflector mounted on a GEM in the 8-10" class. This
will be half the price of a SGT. It will, however, require a bit more
"care and feeding" and will be a bit larger and harder to handle. A
similar scope would be:
http://www.celestron.com/prod_pgs/tel/c10ngt.htm
I've been seeing fewer and fewer of these for some reason. Most
people will cut the price down even farther and go with a Dob instead
of this setup. The only difference between this scope and a Dob is
the mounting. The advantage here is that you can dabble with your
astrophotography.
I hope this helps.
Clear, Dark Skies
Mark