'scope advice

Hello everyone,

I'm in the UK, and I'm starting a degree in Astronomy later in the year.
Being a mature student, it's even important for me to keep costs down, and
I'd love to get a better 'scope (floppy department store 600mm refractor,
pretty poor eyepieces and barlow, not to mention the lousy colour problems)
for both the degree and general observations of nebulae, binaries and so on,
so ideally somthing that would let me see things down to maybe 8 mag.

If anyone knows where in the UK I can get regular classified listings of 2nd
hand scopes, parts etc, I'd be very grateful.

On my existing cruddy scope, I've kind of bodged together dials for alt/az -
they're pretty rough, but they do help me find things in the sky pretty
quickly. If anyone's got experience of making these kinds of things
themselves, I'd appreciate some advice or input - I have been thinking of
mounting a moulded plastic or light alloy plate on the 'scope under the
screw points of the tripod mounting for the alt angle, and mounting a 360
degree compass face on the tripod below the scope. With a little
"calibration" I think I should be able to get to within maybe 30 mins of a
given object. I've got stiff card dials at the moment, and they do OK to
within about a degree once I've aligned the needles. If I'm missing an
easier method for accurate alignment, please let me know!

--
Best regards,
Mike Coombs
www.tanisbinaries.com

Hi Mike, try http://www.ukastroads.co.uk/
jc


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