Space Forum / Astronomy / November 2004

First, look at the telescope buyers FAQ's
http://home.inreach.com/starlord/
http://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/tbfaq.html

Unfortunately, at the money you are talking, 99% of the stuff being sold,
will be what is known as 'department store' scopes, which are generally
not worth much more than the box they are in!... :-(
If you can stretch your budget a little, look at:
http://www.acecameras.co.uk/asp/prodtype.asp?ph=cat&prodtype=1188

Generally, there is a problem, that for a mount to be stable, and move
smoothly, it ends up costing a lot of money. Many of the cheaper scopes
sold, have optics that while not 'great', can actually see quite a lot,
but then suffer from a mount, that is so poor, little can be seen. The
'Dobsonian' mount, was an attempt to design a very simple, but practical
mount, that could be homemade, from cheap materials, yet work well. On
these scopes, far more of the money ends up going into the optics, than on
other models for a similar price. A 6" scope is large enough to see a
suprising amount.

Best Wishes