Posted: 12/7/2016 11:21:02 AM EDT
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Can anyone point me in the right direction on a good place to find a telescope in the Atlanta area or in central Georgia?
I've googled this but can't seem to find anything. |
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How much are you looking to spend?
I purchased a Celestron NexStar 8SE Telescope Bundle from High Point Scientific for $1299, but they have since had them on sale for about 1099. It automatically locates objects and tracks them for you. Alternatively, you can buy telescopes without tracking that are similar quality for about 5-6 hundred. The one that they sell in Costco or other big box stores are pretty junky. You will be disappointed in the image quality. |
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Quoted:
How much are you looking to spend? I purchased a Celestron NexStar 8SE Telescope Bundle from High Point Scientific for $1299, but they have since had them on sale for about 1099. It automatically locates objects and tracks them for you. Alternatively, you can buy telescopes without tracking that are similar quality for about 5-6 hundred. The one that they sell in Costco or other big box stores are pretty junky. You will be disappointed in the image quality. Thanks for the info. Did you order it online? |
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Thanks for the info. Did you order it online? Yes, I ordered it online. As far as I know, there are no dealers of mention in the area. We went to the Fernbank Observatory and they had people there who set up some smaller telescopes that you can look at. Check them out at http://www.fernbank.edu/observatory.htm If they don't have anyone showing their scopes, there are people who can help guide you. |
| Check out http://store.astronomerswithoutborders.org. They have subsidized scopes. I have one for my son... can't wait for Christmas to open iT. |
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I would encourage you to look through a much larger telescope than what you are likely to purchase to make sure you know what you are getting into. A lot of people think space looks like the Hubble pictures. Also are you planning to do astrophotography or just plain old looking?
Georgia Tech has free, "Public Nights" every month which are very kid/family friendly http://www.astronomy.gatech.edu/calendar/index.php Fernbank has larger telescopes twice weekly http://www.fernbank.edu/observatory.htm Atlanta Astronomy club also does a ton of different outreach events all around Atlanta http://atlantaastronomy.org/public-outreach/ Also, the store you were looking for was called "Camera Bug" off Briarcliff Rd NE (near the original Quickshot Shooting Range) but it permanently closed some years ago upon the owners death. I know a ton about this so feel free to PM me or just post in the thread. |
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Because you plan to casually observe, I would also encourage you to grab your favorite pair of hunting biconulars (and your family member) and try those first. I say this because people usually get frustrated trying to learn about their telescope and the night sky at the same time.
Trying to locate things in the night sky is fairly difficult manually. You'll need to google up a star chart for where you live (or download an app), and get familiar with the celestial sphere and its coordinates, right ascension and declination. It's exactly like latitude and longitude on Earth, except it is fixed to the stars as the Earth rotates. In my opinion, the most satisfying first goal would be to wake up a half hour or so before dawn and try to find Jupiter. You should easily see it with your naked eye, but through the binoculars you should be able to see some brighter moons. Even if you decide to invest a lot in a computerized GO-TO mount, it still requires some fairly technical setup. Also so don't let me discourage you! It's very rewarding to see galaxies and nebula with your own eye, but I also want to set the expectation that you will likely have to invest some time learning new things. |
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We have a small schmidt cassegrain scope I bought about 20 years ago. It has a clock motor, but not real tracking.
IHMO, don't get one without tracking! You'd be amazed how fast things move out of view. Even just the clock motor is so much better than nothing. People have brought out their hobbyist scopes for various cub/boy scout event and the frustration of trying to find and keep items in view, takes the fun out of it. |
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I'm going to be honest...you make it sound like rocket science.
I got an Orion telescope when I was like 9 years old. figured out how to use it, bought a barlow lens, and would go out in east cobb and find saturn in about .2 seconds. fudged with the focus for a little bit and boom, saturns rings. poped up. Its not hard to find things in the night sky. If you lived in the middle of the atlantic, yeah it might be difficult due to there being 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 visible things. Go outside, find a bright object, setup telescope pointed in general direction, use viewfinder to hone in, look through lens...marvel for a few seconds and figure out which way its moving, then loosen both axis and put the object in the corner so it tracks across the lens. |
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Quoted:
I'm going to be honest...you make it sound like rocket science. I got an Orion telescope when I was like 9 years old. figured out how to use it, bought a barlow lens, and would go out in east cobb and find saturn in about .2 seconds. fudged with the focus for a little bit and boom, saturns rings. poped up. Its not hard to find things in the night sky. If you lived in the middle of the atlantic, yeah it might be difficult due to there being 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 visible things. Go outside, find a bright object, setup telescope pointed in general direction, use viewfinder to hone in, look through lens...marvel for a few seconds and figure out which way its moving, then loosen both axis and put the object in the corner so it tracks across the lens. I agree that if you are going to look for bright things it's fairly easy. Ok so that gives you what...Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and Alberio as interesting things to look at? I figured if OP wants to spend hundreds of dollars buying their own telescope they want to look at more than what is just visible to the naked eye. And doing that requires some amount of time and learning. I'm not saying it's rocket science, I'm just trying to set expectations. |