I know the almighty list counts a few amateur astronomers among our ranks, so I'm seeking any advice you can offer. My wife and Westy traveling partner has recently gotten the astronomy bug, and is interested in a good quality telescope suitable for viewing, and perhaps eventually photographing, planets and other heavenly bodies. We'd like something relatively compact enough to fit in the Westy for weekends spent camping and stargazing in the north woods, so she's presently leaning toward a Schmitt-Cassegrain design, probably in the 8-inch range, but we are open to other suggestions. • Other telescope designs or brands to consider? • Is one design significantly more durable and therefore better suited to backwoods travel than the others? • Is one design better for astrophotography than another? • Do most telescope celestial navigation computers have a manual-override function to enable manual navigation? Any advice would be appreciated, and if this subject is considered too oblique for the Vanagon List, please pmail with any responses. Thanks! Jeffrey Earl 1983 diesel Westfalia "Vanasazi" http://www.vanthology.com/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.