My telescopes

As I was writing what will become my next post – Simple “push-to” telescope system, I realised I hadn’t ever mentioned my telescopes here.

This is mainly because, although I have 3 telescopes, I don’t do anything that serious with them, just use them for fun. I have dabbled with some astro-photography, but usually, I am just sitting out in the garden, browsing the skies with them.

My first was an Orion StarBurst, a lovely portable table-top 4.5″ dobsonian reflector, originally sold as a kid’s telescope, but actually far better than that. It is a superb browsing telescope.

Not long after the StarBurst, I bought a Bresser Skylux 70mm refractor. Lidl had been selling them for 50 quid as a Christmas special, and I actually considered it at the time I bought the StarBurst. A few months after Christmas, I started seeing them appear on eBay, the one I bought had been taken out of its box, but never assembled, and I paid 30 quid for it, complete with tripod.

A few years later, I had a chance to buy an 8″ dobsonian, second-hand. A SkyWatcher – not a first-class make, but fairly popular, and capable. Views with this are terrific, but it is a lot heavier to move around.

Strictly speaking, astronomy is best done in the winter, when skies are clearest. Fie on that, I’m more of a spring and summer star-gazer, and prefer to sit outside with a glass of wine at my hand. As such, I am not very knowledgable about the skies, apart from the obvious stars and objects. Every now and then, I resolve to change this, but my knowledge is still fairly minimal.

Now onwards to the next post…

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