Hi everyone,
I am new to the forum and just getting started with stargazing. I am excited to finally explore the night sky more seriously. I am looking for a beginners friendly telescope, something easy to use, affordable, and good for viewing the Moon, planets, and maybe a few deep-sky objects.
I have seen recommendations like the Celestron NexStar 4SE and StarSense Explorer, and some people say Dobsonians are great for beginners too. I would love to hear your thoughts. what worked for you when you were starting out?
Thanks in advance!
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@katherine234, welcome to the wonderful world of astronomy. Choosing a telescope that fits your situation is the most important thing you are going to do. So before you do anything find a astronomy club and join it, then spend some time learning what you like to look at (moon and planets, open clusters, globular clusters, nebula or the faint fuzzies) and what scope works best for it. Once you figure that out then you find the scope that does it and works for your lifestyle.
Dobs are easy to use and win the best bang for the buck category, but no matter the size they are kind of bulky to handle and the bigger you go the bulkier it becomes. Dobs are generally considered your deep sky faint fuzzy scope, but one that is well collimated and cooled down will do most targets justice.
Refractors are good for nice wide angle views of the night sky, but they are also good for the moon and planets. Refractors are going to be your most expensive scope per inch or mm of aperture.
Then you have your Cats and Casses. The narrow field of view with these kinda of puts a damper on the really big targets but they are awesome on the moon, planets, globular clusters and distant galaxies. These scopes fall into the jack of all trade scopes. They dont do any one thing the best, but they do everything decently.
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