[TheOtherHobbes]

I wouldn't get a telescope for direct observation. We're all used to stunning images from Hubble and from amateur astrophotographers. But even if you get an 16" semi-professional monster with all the options, you will not see those kinds of stunning views.

I've used a 20" (!) Dobsonian and as an experience it was pretty meh, aside from the novelty value. Space simply doesn't look that impressive that through a telescope - not even a huge light bucket. And a small affordable scope will be even more disappointing. You can see Saturn's rings and craters on the Moon and the satellites of Jupiter with some rough impression of banding, but most nebulae are faint, small, and not at all spectacular.

Instead, I'd consider astrophotography. It's not a cheap hobby, but it's also not as cripplingly expensive as a high-end scope. And you can produce genuinely stunning results by layering the sharpest and best images with software. This sidesteps the problem of poor seeing (optical distortions caused by air movements) which limits good direct viewing to large objects and cold nights.

The amazing thing about modern astrophotography is that amateurs are easily outclassing the images produced by professional astronomers fifty years ago. And you can start without a telescope at all by fixing a DSLR to a tracking telescope mount. There's also a lot to learn so you can start simple, produce some decent visual results, and then continue to be amazed as your skills improve.

[Rapzid]

Disagree. Seeing the rings of Saturn with your own eyes, literal photons hitting your retina that have come from Saturn, is a stunning view. Ditto for Jupiter's storm. Doesn't matter that it's not Hubble quality.

[ericbarrett]

I was privileged to see the Shoemaker-Levy comet impact with Jupiter through the Lick 36” Refractor[0] on Mt. Hamilton. I still recall the large black spot on Jupiter from an earlier fragment, and a scintillating final piece of the comet yet to meet its fate, hovering a quarter-radius off the surface. Not something you see every day, but there is definitely magic to seeing it real-time.

[0] https://www.ucolick.org/public/telescopes/36-inch.html

[A_No_Name_Mouse]

Correct, there are a few objects that are spectacular. However they don't change much in time. So the novelty wears off pretty quickly. After seeing them a couple of times my telescope is now collecting dust in the attic.

[mlthoughts2018]

Gotta mainline those photons.

[spoonjim]

Nothing appeals to me about astrophotography since I’ll spend all that time on my computer just to get something I could find on Reddit in 2 seconds. The great thing about having a telescope is looking directly at Saturn.

[pvarangot]

Learning how to setup tracking with a meh telescope and a sturdy mount is in my opinion more fun and more rewarding than just tracing with a DSLR tele lens. Unless you have a system with big enough magnification to start bumping into the real issues with stabilization and tracking, on a DSLR with an APS sensor that will start happening around 300/400 mm focal length and lenses that are good enough to start doing stacking with are more expensive than a meh telescope.

Also it's better to start playing with a telescope sooner so that you get used to the particular problems of telescopes regarding IQ, like the ugly "bokeh" from the spider and the (lack of) chromatic aberration.

A good telescope you can look through is a smoother gateway into this than a DSLR for some people.

[ece]

More than stabilization and tracking issues, is light pollution unless you have 300mm+ lenses. At that point with the tracking gear, lens and body you're well above a meh telescope, unless maybe you build the tracking gear yourself and are ok with some lens experimentation.

A cheap body+wide lens can do astro-photography, if you can easily get away from light pollution. If you want to look at things from a suburban backyard, a decent telescope is the way to go, maybe one with some sort of a camera attachment.

[pvarangot]

Yeah but you can't do much about light pollution so it's boring. With the telescope or the long lens you can learn how to deal with vibrations, drift, learn how to calibrate tracking, etc...

[ece]

There are things you can do with physical+software filters, and bias frames in general, for wide astrophotography shots.

My point is you'll need a tracker with the long lens, worry about light pollution with a wide lens, and worry about neither with a telescope because human eyes aren't limited to ISO6400 and can stack in real time.

[necheffa]

I agree you need to temper your expectations. But, something I don't think comes up often enough is that as you get older, your eyes not only have focus problems, you have less color receptors too. That means galaxies and nebulae are just faint grey smears instead of faint colored smears for anyone ~30 and older.

[jjav]

> you will not see those kinds of stunning views.

> Instead, I'd consider astrophotography.

I mean, the same logic is true for astrophotography. Unless one is willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and years practicing and willing to build a remote observatory on some land at a dark site, there is no picture one can ever take that isn't already taken in far superior quality here https://welcome.astrobin.com/

But it's fun to see things with own eyes and take photos with very own camera.

[dplavery92]

I hard disagree with you, though I think there is something important about acknowledging what you'll ever be able to see with the naked eye. DSOs are going to be fuzzy white spots, no matter how much aperture you have. You will never get the colorful panoplies of astrophotos.

That said, I think you're underselling the experience of seeing these objects with your eyes in real time, and overselling the accessibility (in price and in difficulty) of setting up astrophotography.