What telescope to buy if my budged is about 1000 USD?

Hi, I鈥檓 new to astronomy鈥?but I always have had a fascination for the stars and I would like to start watching them as a hobby鈥o what telescope would you recommend?... considering that I have a budged of about 1000 USD. Also... it would be great if I could connect the telescope to my PC.|||Automated telescopes have more requirements for extras, setup procedure, power at a remote site, and are smaller in aperture than a non-automated one.


If you wish the biggest one for the money, and don't need tracking, a nice, stable 10 inch dobsonian would be very good.


You can get a dobsonian with a digital readout system that can be linked to a computer.


Dobsonians can be put on a motorized equatorial platform for tracking.


An equatorial telescope like the Meade ETX125-PE or similar are not as large, but offer high power, tracking, and are compact.


Be sure to budget for extra eye lenses ($40-250), equipment table, flashlight, maps, magazines, batteries, cables, a sturdy tripod if needed (if not included), binoculars, a better finder scope, camera and adapter (if desired).


Telescopes age very slowly. You can get good prices from dealers on used ones, or go shopping at www.astromart.com or www.telescope-warehouse.com on line. Ebay.com is not recommended unless you get a money back guarantee that can be collected locally or from a reputable corporation (do they exist?).|||Read up since there are a _lot_ of issues to consider, and no-one here has the time or inclination (or in some cases, knowledge) to go through all the relevant issues in detail.





My inclination would be to a Meade LXD75 - you may just be able to sneak the SN-8 in under budget. That is a goto scope which can be steered by PC although I would not pay too much attention to that.





The alternative would be a larger manual scope but you would really need to take that to a dark sky location to get any benefit from it. Using a large scope in suburban skies is a pointless exercise since the skies are not dark enough for you to make use of the additional aperture.





Goto does help finding things in light polluted skies. Some insist that it is wasting money better spent on optics but ultimately it doesn't matter how good your optics if you can't find the object in the first place. For mid range scope it is a take it or leave it thing. Any higher than the $1000 level I would say it is a definite.|||Hi. There is a big difference between a quality scope for $1,000 and an automated scope for $1,000. Consider a good 8" Dobsonian to get started. My opinion|||buy the hubble telescope it takes good pictures