Telescope or Microscope,, help plz?

Anyone who's just looking for a bit of quick entertainment is probably wasting their money on either a telescope or a microscope. Both are nothing more than tools used to explore huge worlds of science, but both require patience and practice to get any sort of in-depth enjoyment.

I cannot say anything about microscopes, since I've never owned one. I've always been more interested in space than in biology, but that's just me. I bought my first telescope 52 years ago, and I'm still out every clear night using my telescope today. Like most people I started out by buying a cheap telescope which soon left me unsatisfied, but my interest was strong and I've been upgrading regularly ever since. That's why I usually advise beginners to spend a bit more and get a telescope which will give them early rewards.

Here are a few web pages with good information on beginner's telescopes:

http://www.gaherty.ca/tme/TME0702_Buying_a_Telesco...

http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html

http://observers.org/beginner/j.r.f.beginner.html

For more advanced information, read Phil Harrington's Star Ware, 4th edition (Wiley).

You'll get the greatest value for your money with a Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount, such as these:

http://www.telescope.com/control/category/~categor...

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/product....

Buy from a store which specializes in telescopes and astronomy, either locally or online; don't buy from department stores, discount stores or eBay as mostly what they sell is junk. Find your local astronomy club and try out different telescopes at one of their star parties:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/organizat...

I strongly recommend that beginners steer clear of astrophotography until they have learned their way around the sky. Astrophotography is by far the most expensive and difficult area of amateur astronomy.

Many people who buy telescopes have no idea how to find interesting things to observe. A good introduction to finding things is NightWatch by Terence Dickinson (Firefly). A more advanced book is Star Watch by Phil Harrington (Wiley).

I have both. :)

For cheap entertainment, I vote for a microscope. I stick all kinds of stuff under my microscope -- hair, cloth, seeds, bugs, tiny little gears and parts from old watches, sticky tape that was under the bed and now has mites on it... you can discover lots of things for yourself that you didn't know existed.

A telescope requires a little more background learning so that you don't run out of stuff to look at. If you don't know anything about astronomy you'll have fun pointing it at things that you can see in the sky, such as planets and the moon. But with a couple of books to tell you where else to look and how to point the thing at objects you can't see without a telescope, you won't get bored and you'll never run out of outer space. :)

My club has this way of scope. that is totally advantageous. yet i like my $800 Newtonian Dob greater effectual. that's with the aid of fact i'm no longer frequently attracted to astrophotography. My Newtonian would not song the sky, yet suits in my automobile, became greater inexpensive, and gadgets up in under 3 minutes. there is a minimum of one quasar that a ten" can see, and final summer, i observed Pluto (approximately 14th importance). you will no longer see black holes - the biggest scopes on earth do no longer see those. An oxygen 3 clear out provide help to to work out nebula even in downtown Detroit, in a food market parking zone with the flood lighting fixtures on (that's a honest description of my driveway). you may incredibly see m57 (the hoop), or m16 (the eagle). the pony head nebula is particularly faint, very small, and from an exceedingly dark sky, and with prevented imaginative and prescient, that could be slightly seen in a 22" telescope. The $800 i spent on my 10" will purchase 26 years of club in my astronomy club. that's what owns the 22" scope. And that's a reliable ingredient. It takes quite a few human beings to guard this way of beast. the three P's of procuring for a telescope are fee, overall performance, and Portability. fee and Portability are coach stoppers. If it fees too lots, you may no longer purchase it (except you wait). If that is not portable, it continues to be the place it finally ends up, and often which potential you do no longer use it. so as that leaves overall performance. overall performance is approximately potential. greater gentle (the diameter of the scope) is "the greater the greater effectual". monitoring is a potential, even without photos. reliable assessment is a potential. a working laptop or laptop merchandise finder is a potential (which i want to propose). My scope has a huge metallic tube. To get a scope that suits in my automobile that's larger, the subsequent step is a truss Dob. Orion now sells a 12" truss dob. The down area is that it will take longer to establish. If i seem up, and that is sparkling, i comprehend that is 3 minutes until now i will word. If i don't experience like it, i comprehend that's time for mattress.

It depends whether you want to be the higher power looking down at the germs or the germ looking up at the higher power.

depends if you would rather look at germs, or spy on your neighbors