Comment on Telescope for a newbie: Smart app enabled?
Kichae@wanderingadventure.party 16 hours ago
imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca I would personally avoid anything that is app reliant. Companies in general have been absolute dogshit about supporting their companion apps over the years. If you’re looking for a telescope with a go-to system, find one that isn’t app based.
Also, I would start looking at the second hand market before looking at a new scope. There is a surprising number of people out there who buy a scope, use it once, and then box it up and eventually sell. You can get really good deals on good-as-new second hand equipment.
The thing you really want to look for is a telescope with a motorized mount. The sky moves fast under motorization. In the span of a minute, whatever you’re looking at can move out of view. Go-to systems are convenient and all, and are motorized, but if you ever want to learn to use celestial coordinate systems, a computerized auto-slew system will get in the way (source: MSc in astronomy, have been an operator at multiple public observatories across Canada; I have no internalized concept of right ascension or declination, because these have all been computerized systems. But if you don’t care about learning coordinate systems, a used go-to scope with no app is the best bang for your buck.
imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca 15 hours ago
Yeah I’m already looking for similarly priced telescopes without smart connection features. I didn’t even think of second hand, I’ll check out my area!
Will most new telescopes will be able to connect to a laptop though? Looks like Stellarium has an option to display directly from a scope and I see most scopes make mention of software so I’m guessing they all pretty much have a connection option?
imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca Most go-to telescopes should connect to a computer. Older ones might use a serial cable instead of USB, but anything made within the last 10 year likely uses USB cables.
undrwater@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
And you can get a USB -> serial cable if something attractive appears.
imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
Awesome that’s what I thought, thanks. I’m gonna start with something basic to learn the ropes but your mention of celestial coordinate systems has already piqued my interest so I expect that’ll be something in my near future lol.
There’s not much in my area for used but I did find a once-used Celestron NexStar 90SLT which retails around $830 CAD. Not sure I want to drop $600-700 on my first telescope tho lol. Might just check to see what he wants for it first just in case tho.