The crazy storms in the midwest that messed up half the country’s work, school, and flight schedules did not disrupt the trek of my telescope from California to North Carolina via UPS, so as far as I’m concerned, that storm was of no real consequence. It arrived Monday. Therefore I spent Monday evening putting it together. I had a chance to get outside Thursday and had a little bit of good viewing. I’m definitely excited about it, and obviously that’s the whole reason I got the thing. However, more on that soon, with some pictures of the assembly process. First, I had some leftover thoughts about the decision-making process and what went into this particular purchase.

Stuff I knew already (I did learn SOMETHING with my astronomy degree, although that’s yellowing and the emphasis was definitely not practical observational stuff):

• The obvious telescope buying tips. There are two big things here. First, people have a common perception about what telescopes look like, and those kinds further turn out to be relatively inexpensive and available in any department store, but those telescopes (i.e., refractors) are generally terrible for astronomy and should not even be in a serious purchasing discussion. Second, for whatever reason, “magnification” is a specification that sounds important, but actually isn’t. Cheap scopes can easily do things to boost magnification, but that’s actually not what’s important when doing astronomy. Magnification necessarily reduces the brightness of what you’re seeing. Rather…
• The number one factor in seeing a lot and seeing it well is aperture diameter. The bigger it is, the more light-gathering power. I’ve spent time looking through 8-inch diameter telescopes, as well as an observatory-quality 16-inch. There’s a big difference there, but things get expensive fast. I knew I wouldn’t consider going less than 8, and I probably wanted more.
• The decision came down to a Dobsonian-style scope, which gives you a huge aperture per dollar but are more unwieldy, or a more classic Schmidt-Cassegrain or something similar, which were a bit more expensive for a similar size, only the overall design was more compact.
• I was going to be mostly backyard observing. It would be unrealistic to make bold plans to spend a lot of time driving out to dark spots and setting up for long nights of telescoping.

Stuff I learned whilst doing research:

• Back to the “obvious tips” point above, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this kind of thing was easily found online. Someone with an interest but without experience would learn these things quickly if they were paying any attention at all. It occurs to me that if someone bought a telescope without doing a lick of reading they would probably get themselves in trouble by what they thought they knew. So for any other major purchases I may make in the future in which I don’t know much about the topic (this includes nearly everything else on Earth) I should remember this and know that I can probably improve my standing even with just the most basic research.
• Good optics are also very important. Some companies have a better reputation for high-quality lenses and mirrors than others.
• Internets have lots of personal telescope-review websites, only they were built in 1997 or so. Finding articles in Sky and Telescope or Astronomy or another actual publication is a better route. Fortunately I am a science librarian and have access to such things.
• If you’re mostly just hanging out in your backyard in suburbia, mirrors beyond about 12 inches supposedly don’t add much extra versus the cost. (EDIT, YEARS LATER WHEN COMING ACROSS THIS POST: Actually don’t bother with even more than like 8 inches if you’re not in a darker sky area.)
• There is a decision to be made about whether you’re going to be mostly just looking at stuff, or trying to take pictures (meaning you need better optics and have to spend more).

Decision points:

• Had to be honest about my expected behavior. I loved staying up observing when I was 20. Now I am 34 and when it’s 10pm I generally want to be in my bed where it is warm and where my wife is comfortably sleeping. Often I do not even have a choice in the matter. Most weeknights I’m tired enough by 10 to be nonfunctional. Also this sometimes turns out to be true on weekends, too. Being up until 2am or later is out of the question probably 362 days a year. Packing the scope up and driving somewhere dark is less unlikely, but still rare. Unless I come home soon to find a giant pile of cash in my driveway, doing away with my need to continue full-time employment, or start aging backwards, none of this is likely to change.
• My backyard isn’t great. It’s in the ‘burbs so there’s a fair amount of ambient light. There are a number of tall trees so I don’t have any view to the north (though that’s the boring direction, stargazing-wise). Nevertheless, it can be acceptably dark and it has the advantage of being, you know, MY backyard.
• I was willing to spend some good money, but (a) there is diminishing rate of returns beyond a certain level of quality, (b) I’m not planning on doing any astrophotography.
• I have no issue with having to set the scope up or do some manual work, because assembling a telescope is a very nerd thing that I like.

In the end:

I ended up going with this one, which is kind of a monster but high on the aperture-per-dollar scale. It has about the biggest mirror you can get. I sacrificed a bit on ease of use here. The other one I thought a lot about would have had a lot less setup time and effort. I had a feeling the latter would have left me feeling underutilized. I would have wanted a bigger scope and would have been willing to do more work to get it up and running. That would have been a good purchase if I thought I’d be more interested in driving myself to a dark location or if I didn’t want to spend a lot of time tinkering with it.