This is what my wife and I gaze at the stars with. It's a Celestron Telescope. The lense is 9 inches wide. This allows for a lot of light gathering so very dim objects can be seen clearly. It's very high quality for amateur viewing.

My wife is the one who knows the most about this. She has bought every kind of lense and filter you can imagine. We can even look at the sun. It has a motor built into it, which once set up properly tracks the stars or moon in the sky, and follows its path as the world turns.

My favorite things to look at are the moon and the rings of saturn. This is in our library and will go outside once we are sure of no more rain. Any of you into the stars?

Dog Breeds, Carl Sagan, the Raiders, and Guns. It seems you have a nice den full of everything a growing boy needs..........plus a telescope.

I'm a stargazer myself although I don't look at too many of them from home when I'm here. I live in the city and I just can't get the views I want.

When I'm down under in OZ though I do a lot of looking. The house there is about 50 miles from any town and 5 miles from the nearest neighbor, so I get billions and billions (sagan) of stars every night, and from the Southern Hemisphere as well.

I'll be spending about a week in the mountains in Thailand starting tomorrow, so I'll stare up and think about how bad I wish I had that scope of yours........

Pleasant viewing. Can you hook a digital camera up to that thing?

Awesome Celestron You Have, There . . . I have a 6 inch reflector from Orion that I am sorely disapointed with. I thought for sure that it would be enough to see the rings of Saturn, Clearly, and the Bands of Jupiter, Clearly as Well . . . Unfortunatly, both are blurry. It can barely even see the Andromeda Galaxy. FYI . . .

Nice looking scope Mike. Where did you guys pick that up? I recall Costco having a motorized scope a while back but don't remember what brand it was.

An old friend of mine got me interested in the stars back in 1970 and the first thing I saw through his 2.5" refractor telescope was Jupiter and four of its moons. I was hooked from then on.

Hey tranny,do the neighbors keep there curtains closed? X

thurson

I bought this at an Orion Telescope and binoculars shop about 15 yrs ago. All they sell are optics for just about anything. This set up with all the special lenses and accessories was then a couple of grand.

adroomi, yes you can attatch a camera to this scope.

xibbumbero, I've never spied on nieghbors. But with this scope you can see the hairs on a nats ass from a mile away, LOL!

Mike,
Looks like a great scope! I bet Jupiter and the 4 visible moons looks much better through yours than through my 4" newtonian K-mart special.

Hey TrannyMk,

Definitely a nice scope. Adroomi forgot to mention the coolador under the desk to the left. Now all you need in the room to make it complete is a fridge.

Did you get a chance to check out mars last year? My dad purchased a nice scope (I forget what brand) just so he could see it at its closest. It was nice, but there is so much light polution here in So Cal, we couldn't see it too well.

jcwbnimble.

Mag

All is cool except the Raiders lamp! Hate is a word that comes to mind, when I think of the Raiders!!!

Great looking setup

Charlie

A friend of mine from work has a 14" Celestron. I've been looking at a 10" Orion, but still undecided. We try to go the the Explore the Stars program at a campground just below the Palomar Observatory a few times each summer. Some of the attendees bring Dobs in the neighborhood of 20". Very impressive.

http://www.sipe.com/explore/ 

I was thinking of buy a Dobsonian.....hope I can aim.

jcwbnimble...

Yes, we looked at Mars and it was very cool... you are the first and only guy to notice the coolerdor... usually NOTHING gets past guys on these boards... even little things like hippo butts, LOL!!

ducati996

Hey nice to hear from you. If you get a quality scope it will have the smaller spotting scope off to the side like mine has. That helps align things you are trying to center on the big scope.

Another thing about star gazing. Start out with your weaker lens. They give a wider view, and make it easier to center. Then work your way up in power.

For folks that enjoy moon gazing... dont view the moon when it's full. It's too bright and shows much less detail. When the moon has shadows, much more detail is given, and is much more interesting.

I Love Large Scopes, but They are Heavy to Move, and Take Up Alot of Room . . . But, that sure is a nice one . . . Drool !

NICE! I assume you have it tied into your PC for auto location and such.

I've had a Celestron 8 inch for 25 years. I just wish I used it more.

AVB

This scope was purchased when an Atari 800 was a good computer, LOL!! Do you remember those? No, I cant do that.

The new ones can...

Is it true that there are rings around Uranus?

I remember the Atari well, your scope looks so good I just assumed it was fairly new.

This scope has had perfect care. It looks as good as the day we bought it.

This scope has been great. The only drawback is exactly what jetblasted said. These larger scopes are heavy. Dont get me wrong, it's not more than it's worth, but I'd rather it be lighter...