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Re: (meteorobs) telescopic meteor? - Scope selection
Dear Group and Johnie,
To add just a little to what Lew and Mike and Malcolm had to say, I too
believe that binoculars are a wonderful tool and my personal first choice
but of course there is no ideal scope and the purpose of observing
determines the best choice.
An 8 inch wide field (i.e. short focal length) Newtonian will do a lot with
clusters, nebula and galaxies. A 10 inch of the same type will get over a
half magnitude fainter in its light grasp. In addition a Barlow lens will
allow high magnification for the moon and planets.
I personally prefer the astro binoculars because of the light grasp and
wide field of view. A pair of 10x80s reach an entire magnitude deeper than
the 10x50 and are quite affordable. The 11x100 binoculars will reach over
1.5 magnitudes deeper than the 10x50.
I have been pushing for years for our school to get some large binoculars
for dark sky field trips and just yesterday with special money from the
dean we ordered a pair of Orion 20x150 binocs. They are not cheap at $4k
but are a lot cheaper than the Fuji 25x150 which run $12k. The Orion
binoculars will reach about 13th magnitude with a 3 degree field of view.
The Orion binoculars are essentially two 5 inch refractors (a pretty
respectable aperture) bolted together. They come with a tripod and fork
mount. Anyone interested in them should email me and I'll let you know what
my field test shows.
Clear Skies,
Terry
*****************************************
Terry Richardson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424
pager #937-1048
843 953-8071 phone
843 953-4824 fax
http://www.cofcdot edu/~richardt/
Office Location: Science Center Room 102
*****************************************
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