"Jay Swartzfeger" wrote in message
...

And thanks/curses to the person that posted the astromart link.
Astronomy classifieds, yay, now I can file for chapter 11! I'm already
hooked on it -- I can't stand all the garbage you have to sift through
on ebay just to find relevant listings.

Used wisely, Astromart can help you try a lot of different equipment without
too much expense (loss). It certainly beats buying stuff new, and then
finding out you don't really like it. After a few years of buying, selling,
and trading, you will start to gravitate toward your favorite equipment
designs, and the instanity will slow down to a crawl. Once you are sure what
you like, you can go ahead and buy the more expensive stuff with a
reasonable level of confidence that you're not going to want to turn around
and sell it in 6 months (or less).

My recommendation is to try out the different types of mounts before you
start shopping for that perfect telescope. Some people prefer Dobsonian
mounts, others GEMs, and others altazimuth tripod mounts. Then there's DSCs
and GoTo to consider.

Some scopes lend themselves better to specific mount types, so it's worth
the effort to understand this as well. For example, a wide field refractor
is just as happy on an altazimuth mount as it is on a GoTo or simple clock
driven GEM, a large Newtonian OTA is best on a Dobsonian mount, where
shorter tubes can be used on a GEM without too much hassle. A long focal
length SCT or a Mak is happier either on a GEM (with or without GoTo), or on
a GoTo Fork (with or without a wedge). A long focal length refractor pretty
much demands a GEM with clock drive.

Regardless of how much you read about equipment, until you've experienced
something in every day use over a period of weeks or months, you really
can't "know" what it's like to live with it. Unfortunately, even attending
star parties isn't sufficient exposure, unless you go faithfully to every
outing over a period of many, many months, or years, and get the hands on
experience.