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Entry-Level Astronomy?
brobak writes "I'm getting ready to move into a new home on a couple of acres of rural property a significant distance from any large source of light pollution. I've always been interested in astronomy in general, and I would like to put my dark skies to use by picking up decent telescope and learning a bit about the skies over my head. The overall budget for this project is going to be around $1,000. I am particularly interested in astrophotography, but I understand that that may carry me outside the scope of the initial budget. I've already signed up for my local astronomy club's next monthly meeting. I have been doing Web research, but I thought that the Slashdot community would be the perfect place to get opinions on entry-level equipment, websites, and books."
Hang out at astronomy clubs and go to their camp-outs and slowly glean more info before blowing a wad of cash. Maybe subscribe to Astronomy Magazine. However, don't be tempted by the ads to buy the Ultra-Mega-Scope. Work your way up slowly. And, purchase a good star map with all the common nebula's and galaxies marked. Also note that the best viewing targets tend to come out in the winter, so prepare yourself for cold weather.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm a moderately experienced amateur astronomer, and a professional astrophysicist. I have a nice TMB 105 apochromatic refractor, and I would never recommend one to a beginner. Good apo refractors have impeccable quality, but they are not cost-effective, unlike a halfway decent 10" Newtonian (which will cost 1/4 as much, yet give far superior views).
Aperture is king. Aperture wins. You can never get enough aperture
My advice is to forget about astrophotography for the moment. Do not get a DSLR camera -- you will want a dedicated astro-camera with a cooled CCD sensor. You will also want a good equatorial mount (Losmandy, Astro-physics, or similar) which will cost at least ~$2000. Deep-sky astrophotography is expensive and for the moment, you're better served with a good visual instrument to get you started. (If you just want to take images of the moon and planets, you can get by with a webcam and a lower cost equatorial mount.)
With a $1k budget, you won't be able to do deep-sky astrophotography. Given your budget, the economics of astro-imaging, and the difficulty of putting a large telescope on a quality equatorial mount, your best bet is to forego imaging until you can save a substantially larger amount of money. In the meantime, get yourself a 10" or larger Dobsonian-mounted Newtonian. They may look cheap, but you will appreciate the aperture when viewing deep-sky objects.
Oh, and join a local astronomy club if you can.
A decent pair of wide field binoculars and a good sturdy tripod (20x60's weigh like 6 pounds so a tripod is a must). I recently picked up a pair of 20x75 Russian bins for less than £200 (US$400) and a surveyor's tripod for £30 (US$60). If you have an SLR camera with an M42 mount it wouldn't be a stretch to build a ring adapter for one side of the binocular and spot with the other side, you can get some good closeups of the moon and some of the brighter deepsky objects (LMC/SMC/M33/M42, etc.). Being in the middle of a city I found that film was getting a bit expensive particularly with a lot of shots being spoilt by streetlighting bloom, so I started to experiment with CMOS and CCD. I quickly came to the realisation that a supercooled CCD was far more sensitive than any film, and so went for broke and bought a cheap secondhand palmcorder. A freon cooling system later and I'm taking shots of the Pleiades cluster in the middle of a major metropolis!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The best advice I got (now in retrospective) when starting out was to buy an telescope that was easy to take out and setup, the best scope is the scope you use often.
I SECOND THIS. I can not say it strong enough. This is THE most important advice for someone just getting in to astronomy. So many people as they are buying their first telescope take the wrong road.
There are 3 roads to take here.
Road 1: It's only $129 and it magnifies 8000 TIMES. - The trap is that the optics are junk in it.
Road 2: I will see more deep sky stuff with a 10 inch dob, or a 12 inch SC. - The trap is that it sits in the basement, unused. It is too much of a pain to just get out on a wonderful night, so it sits. This is the advice the poster above was giving you.
Road 3: A nice middle of the road scope that fits your budget and you use all the time to learn the sky and see things that are amazing.
As others have said, the astrophotography aspect of it is really going to be above your budget. Sure, you can get the "webcam converted to a starscope", but it is junk. Stay within your budget, and get a nice scope for yourself. One that you can get outside at the drop of a hat. Not something that becomes an anchor.
Let me quote him again:
The best advice I got (now in retrospective) when starting out was to buy an telescope that was easy to take out and setup, the best scope is the scope you use often.
That was the best advice I got as well. The best one is the one you will use. I guess that means smaller is better in this case.
You'll want the fastest (optically) scope you can afford. Don't be conc0erned with aperture. You'll appreciate the fast speed (low f/stop) when taking photos.
Have realistic expectations: You'll NEVER take Hubble-like pictures and there are very few things (outside of our atmosphere) that you'll see any color from with your eye. Photography offers a better change to capture color.
Learn about stacking multiple exposures: see Photoshop or applications like AStroStack
Spend the extra money on a good tripod and mount as you'll really wish you did when you start shooting longer exposures (because stacking isn't cutting it and now you want to stack long-exposures)
Don't waste your money on a red flash light. Red light is needed to help keep your eyes acclimated to the darkness. Red cellophane over a regular flashlight works. LEDs are the best as they have long battery life.
Allow the telescope to adjust temperature for several hours.
Know your equipment. This will some with time AND USE.
Know this sky. This will come with time and use.
Remember that you spent all that money to enjoy the wonders of the universe. Don't get pissed or let down.
Good luck on keeping mosquitoes away.