What kind of telescope should I get?

A good pair of binoculars for the moon. My telescopes where too powerful to see anything. the telescope , if you want to buy one should have a great tripod and refractors and reflectors take the fun out of looking at the moon. Telescopes are best for looking at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. If you buy a pair of binoculars pick one that is light because your neck will hurt after 5 minutes. Good viewing.

Check here for inexpensive telescopes. Or buy a pair of binoculars and get an inexpensive tripod for them.

A good pair of astronomical binoculars, 70mm at least with a tripod. To see the planets and moon use an inexpensive refractor. To see deep sky a dobsonian reflector is a good first.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I really appreciate your answer, but what is a refractor? I am pretty well educated, but I am not sure what you are telling me.
That is what I am talking about in my question.
I appreciate your help, and if it is not too much trouble give me one more nugget.

types

There is a third type not listed in the Britannica post. Mead sells a combination scope, which both reflects and refracts to give you a pretty powerful view without too much of an expense. I have an ETX-90 EC, and I can see Saturn’s rings. I got mine from a garage sale, but I would guess it’s worth about $850 new.

My boyfriend has this one, it’s more than I would have paid personally, but it is very nice and the details you can see in the moons surface make it worth the cost.

@filmfann I would also highly recommend the etx-90. I have been out of astronomy for a while but those were amazing when I was into it

I checked the price on the ETX-90 and it is closer to $400. Quite the bargain!

Josie,

As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I can speak with authority on this. If you don’t want to do photography, you can do this for pretty cheap, but it depends on your budget.

You don’t want a refractor (see below)

For <$100 I recommend this:
http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/telescopes/firstscope-telescope

For < 500 I recommend a Dobsonian telescope.
http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/pc/1/12.uts

You will want a couple of different eye pieces, and maybe a Barlow, which is a doubler. An excellent starting scope package is an 6” or 8” dobsonian, a 25 mm and 17 mm eyepiece, and a 2X Barlow. That will give you everything you want. Add in a Telrad viewfinder and a good atlas like Terrance Dickenson’s Nightwatch and that’ll be good for you for years.

Now, if you want a “go to” scope, with a mount that will point to where you tell it, that gets more expensive, or a smart Dobsonian, that gets more expensive.

The difference between the types of scopes:
Refractors are basically are tubes with two pieces of glass on either end. Cheap refractors are, well, cheap, and worse than worthless. Good refractors start in the several of hundreds of dollars. I have a 5” refractor that I bought used, but retail is about $6000

Reflectors are the best bang for the buck. You get aperture, which increases your light gathering power, and you can get more aperture for pretty cheap. An 8” reflector on a dobsonian mount is about $370. (At least on Orion’s site)

Catadioptric scopes are a combination of both. They’re solid, but they’re more expensive. They’re also optically slower.

Good article here
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-equipment/how-to-choose-a-telescope/

My best advice, though, is go to your local astronomy club and one of their star parties, and look at the various sizes and shapes of scopes.

Now, if you’re interested in astrophotography, it’s a whole different ballgame. If you want to do any type of serious astrophotography, now you’re talking serious time, money, patience, and frustration. Especially frustration.

Feel free to give any follow up questions, and research before you buy. I’ve seen too many people buy equipment that wasn’t matched well for them, and they walk away from the hobby frustrated forever.

Lastly, although you’ll see the moon and the planets pretty well with pretty much any scope, seeing deep sky objects is often a disappointment. My avatar, for instance is a photo of M42 and the Running Man nebula, but it’s a composite photo that has gone through extensive high dynamic range processing using layers and masks in photoshop. If you look at it through an eyepiece, you’ll see a smudge. Visual deep sky astronomy is all about getting excited about seeing smudges.

@osoraro Hey that is good stuff. Thanks alot!
So, in fact, I am a better than average photographer. And I know Photoshop backwards and forwards. So given all that, give me more please. And thanks in advance.

@josie
Watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlvv21gRXQ

And then look at the beginning section of this site.
http://starizona.com/acb/ccd/ccd.aspx

Once you’re done with this, I’ll start talking about mounts, scopes, cameras, photography techniques, and software if you are still interested.

While you’re getting acquainted with the deep rabbit hole that is astrophotography, I’ll just mention that beginners usually focus on the camera and the scope, but honestly, the three most important things in astrophotography are the mount, the mount, and the mount, especially if you’re interested in long exposure deep sky astrophotography.

First you have to ask yourself what you are interested in photographing. Deep sky objects and planetary are completely different balls of wax, and the Venn diagram between them is pretty thin. Most deep sky astrophotographers (like me) don’t do planetary and vice versa, unless we have different scopes and mounts. There are some very good technical reasons behind this, but my plane is boarding so I don’t have time to get into it right now. :-)