Backyard Voyager
My first two telescope choices
Celestron's 9.25 inch Schmidt Cassegrain
You wouldn't think it would be that tough to choose a telescope, since there are essentially there are only two types of optical systems, refractors and reflectors. But there are dozens of variations on those themes, and dozens of comapanies creating those variations. Narrowing it to only one telescope makes the choice even harder. In my case it
took six months.
At left is the Celestron 9.25 with some of the accessories I ordered along with the scope. It didn't take long to discover that many were necessities, or, at least so close to being necessary that getting along without them was an undesirable prospect.
No telescope is perfect. You'll never find one that excels at every task you might require of it. There are quality and feature tradeoffs involved in any purchase decision, and most people who stick with the hobby for any length of time end up with more than one telescope. But you have to start somewhere, and in the end a Schmidt-Cassegrain seemed like a good compromise-- decent optics with enough aperture for deep space objects in a relatively compact package. Read more...
Orion 12" XTI Reflector
After reading a few lengthy debates between die-hard apochromatic refractor fans and Newtonian reflector devotees, I was pretty much sold on the reflector idea. Evidently so were a lot of other people. Isaac Newton's design
had been around for a while by the time I learned of it. Orion's line of reflectors had especially interested me, particularly since their introduction of the "Intelliscope," which was their "Classic" dob to which they had added digital setting circles.
Another interesting aspect of their line of reflectors was the reported quality of the mass-produced Chinese mirrors they used. Fewer and fewer reviewers were spending much time on words and phrases like "consistent" or "sample-to-sample variation." Yet another point of interest was the ever increasing size of these reportedly decent Pyrex mirrors. By the time they reached 12 inches at a price of right around a thousand dollars I was nearly sold. Read more...