Had some urge lately to look toward the planets or even just the moon(on a budget)
So are the cheap "National Geographic" ones like on sale recently at Aldi worth a pinch
Of poo?
How much do you really need to spend to be able to see a planet and what sort of detail
Could you expect ie: rings of Saturn
I live close to the big smoke too so I guess this makes a difference.
My biggest concern is the interest will be fleeting especially if it's all a bit crap.
Thanks in advance for input.

When I was 13 a mate and I made one out of a couple cardboard tubes that could slide together. Had a 1 dioptre lens from the local optometrist for the front lens and a standard magnifying glass as eye piece. Could see the craters on the moon and saturn rings with that.
you don't need much to see rings of Saturn, moons of Jupiter and Venus and Mars as crescents, (if they're not full).
I've since bought an el-cheapo 700mm Tasco, about the most basic I could by at the time, and that does that no worries, I made an adapter to fit my first digital camera to it and took some pics.

Taken the same night but they were much further apart than this, I've copy pasted Saturn into Jupiter's pic, which has 3 moons showing. Getting the exposure just right is tricky, if you give it enough exposure to clearly show the moons Jupiter is too bright to show the rings, this pic does neither well, it's a compromise to show both.
Through the eye piece the human eye has no trouble seeing both, and doesn't have to cope with my dodgy camera adaptation.


And here's the moon through it.

The main thing wrong with the telescope is the cheap mount, it's no where near balanced, and the brake has to be on quite hard to stop it moving, so trying to track a moving planet gets jerky. I've added about 1kg of lead to improve the balance and make the movement smoother. It's also got a sloppy focussing movement, I've added mylar shims around the tubes so the eye piece doesn't move about so much.

A few years ago now we went to the Gin Gin observatory, and were quite disappointed, their very expensive much bigger telescopes didn't show much more than we could see through ours. I guess we've just been spoilt by those lovely Hubble pictures.

Oh yeah almost forgot, here's the McNaught comet.

Hey there Wanga, I have had a couple of fairly serious telescopes but have not used them as much as I thought I would. After the initial excitement of seeing the moon (quite amazing if using good gear, ie craters inside craters) and a couple of the closer planets, you have to be quite keen to seek out more distant targets.
This means staying up quite late so as it's dark enough in summer or getting quite cold in Tassie if you choose to start earlier in the winter dark. I have had an SCT (short fat tube mirror lens $1300) and more recently a 114mm Williams Optics refractor $2000 both of which I bought 2nd hand. The telescopes themselves aren't necessarily big but as mentioned, the tripod and mount have to be substantial. This means that storage can be an issue and if it has to be set up for every use, it probably won't happen very often. I have an adapter to use an SLR camera and ther is no doubt the refractor makes a fine tele lens, but no aperture control and obviously manual focus.
An excellent site called Iceinspace which has forums and an enticing list of items in the classifieds section, there is some fairly reasonable gear available for somewhat less than I have committed to.

I just saw this....www.iflscience.com/technology/you-can-now-build-your-very-own-powerful-telescope-home/

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decrepit said..


A few years ago now we went to the Gin Gin observatory, and were quite disappointed, their very expensive much bigger telescopes didn't show much more than we could see through ours. I guess we've just been spoilt by those lovely Hubble pictures.

i must admit i went there with the wife on a march night and was pretty dissapointed . I was expecting the same as you and came away $110 lighter and not very enthused to go back there and give it another shot .

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Wanga F One said..
. . . So are the cheap "National Geographic" ones like on sale recently at Aldi worth a pinch Of poo? . . .

Save your money for something better, otherwise it'll be a 9-day wonder. This link might interest you:-

www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=37639

If you do get a telescope, it's imperative to get one with a proper equatorial mount. The mount's purpose is to counter the Earth's rotation, so the telescope can fix on an exact point in the sky.

However, perhaps you would get better value / usage from a quality pair of binoculars - eg Asahi Pentax, in the range of 8 to 12 power. You can see lots of interesting night things with these:- Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, Magellanic clouds and so on.

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Wanga F One said..
. . . I live close to the big smoke too, so I guess this makes a difference. . . .

Sadly, yes; a big difference.

Consider joining a local amateur astronomy group. Tap into their collective wisdom, before deciding whether or not to purchase.