Reputable dealers would help. I see that some telescopes have a long waiting time before delivery.
I have nothing helpful. I just wanted to mention that the first time I looked through a telescope I was stunned. It’s been years since.
I’m looking, too...they can’t tax telescope viewing
Do a little googling, find a local star party. You’ll find many different scopes there and people happy to talk about them and let you see them in action.
Take a look around the classifieds & forum section of Cloudy Nights.
And visit a local star party. Amateur astronomers love to show folks their telescopes and talk about it.
I do like Schmidt Cass scopes for their versatility, but I’ve always been a Newtonian man since you can optimize them for planetary viewing, and they’re considerably cheaper.
I would recommend you consider what you want to do with it in the long term. I own two currently, one is the obsession 18 inch and the other one is a stellarvue 130. The 18 inch gives outstanding views of almost every messier object while the Stellarvue gives incredible sharpness but not as much power. It’s on a losmandy mount which gives incredible tracking ability. So the Stellarvue I am intending to use for Astrophotography.
You might want to consider joining sites like cloudy nights where are you can get the opinions of quite a few people in the hobby and they have a very good classified section.
9.25” Celestron is great for planets and deep sky objects but it’s best to pay more for a computer driven mount. The upgrade on the mount is worth the price. Type in right ascension and declination and the computer does the rest. The computer clock drives work much better than the gizmos you attach to the mount.
I’m looking to upgrade my mount. Shoulda bought the better mount when I bought the 9.25. Wonderful seeing in the great Southwest, not so much in the East. Good luck.
-Frank
A Celestron Master 130 is a good one. It’s about $280.00.
I had a 6 inch Newtonian. I hear you. Dragging that thing around can give you a bad back.
BTTT
I bought a 6” dobsonian, it is still on backorder.
I have a 3.5” Questar that I bought in the 1960’s. Beautiful, rugged, compact little instrument. Still works fine after 50+ years.
Not inexpensive, but gave me lots of pleasure, astronomically as well as bird-watching, nature observation, etc.
Double stars, Messier objects, planets. Lots of Norton’s observing.
The two big names are Meade and Celestron. Meade declared bankruptcy a few months back, mainly to avoid a lawsuit judgment. Either one is probably a good buy.
Everything is in short supply, so be prepared to wait.
I would go at least for a 6”, and get a goto scope unless you know the sky really well. Much bigger than an 8” and you aren’t going to want to move it around but the views are incredible. I have a 12” Meade SCT that weighs nearly 80 pounds, but really opens up the universe.
Schmidt Cassegrain’s can be very heavy.
I bought a used one with an 8” or 12 “ mirror, (don’t remember now) and it’s so heavy mr. mm has to lift it to set it up.
I had a plain old 6” reflector and it was awkward. LONG tube but easy to collimate.
I also have a 3” refractor but it just doesn’t seem to have the magnifying power but is the easiest to haul around.
I would suggest “binocular astronomy”.
Larger telescopes, for me, are a bit to lug, or have ‘the right spot’ in the yard.
A fold up lawn ‘recliner’, a set of nice binoculars, wide angle does so much, and your map and red light flashlight, and you are all set.
Some folks make up a binocular chair for the LARGE ones.
I built an 8” Dobsonian years ago. Did the math, built the stand, polished the mirrors. Very rewarding. Down side is Dobs are big to transport and it doesn’t track automatically. There are some plans online if you are inclined - could be a fun project.
Seen Saving Private Ryan? Perhaps a telescope is looking for you.
A lot of good comments already.
Definitely check for an astronomical club in your area, see if they have any star parties. Colleges sometimes are heavily involved in astronomical clubs.
Schmidt Cassegrains are good but expensive. The best view is always with a refractor scope, but they are prohibitively expensive. Most people find about a 5 inch is all they can afford. I’ve used a 5 inch, it put the Orion 8 inch newtonian/dobson to shame.
Here’s an example, Meade 130mm / 6 inch refractor scope, over $10,000
The Orion ED80 is almost $1900, with a small 80mm objective lens, which is under 3 inches. That’s with go to tracking system.
I like the Orion newtonian scopes on Dobson mounts. Not easy to transport, bulky but not really heavy until you get into the 12 inch scopes, very stable and a great view of the sky. My 6 inch can pick out Jupiter and Saturn with no trouble, the stripes and red spot on Jupiter are quite visible. A friend has a 12 inch with electronics, he loves it, but a bit bulky and heavy to move around. He also has a pair of astronomical binoculars, they are very nice.
My 6 inch Orion has a handle on it you can use to pick it up and carry it, about 35 lbs, a bit bulky but not hard to move around short distances, like out in the back yard.
The problem with dobson mounts is as ar as I know, none have tracking capability, unless they’ve vastly improved since last time I looked at them. The upside though, they are very stable, bump it to move a bit and it stops shaking in one second, or less, quite easy to point at the object you want once you get your spotter scope aligned. My 6 inch can pick out things like the ring nebula, dumbbell nebula, most galaxies are just gray smudges though, being so far away.
Avoid anything under 8 inch, since you’ve already used one that size, smaller will not impress you. Unless it’s a refractor.
If you don’t plan to move, it may be worth building a small observatory. Not that hard to do, a friend built one in his back yard, just a 6 foot tall buoilding with a sliding top on rollers that just rolled oout of the way, plug in an extension cord and he was ready to go. He put a Shmidt Cassegrain 8 oinch on a metal post, left it there allt he time but since it was unpugged when he left, it had to be re-trained to “see” true north every time he used it.
Scopes with computeried tracking have to be trained on true north, and level too, then you focus on two specific stars to train it to “know” where everything else is. Once that is done, it can find and track anyting in the sky until you unplug it. I had to add several feet to his power cord because it would get wrapped around the post during use. His scope came with cigarette lighter plug he could use in a car, or a wall wart he could use at home with an extension cord. Either eay if you do a lot of moving around it will eventually wrap the cord around the mount post.
I just looked, goodwill site has nothing interesting right now, but keep checking, they get new stuff fairly often. All donated, most scopes will be pick up only. One in wackifornia now, onlylarge one there.
Meade, Celestron and Orion are the best brands out there, don’t even bother with the small 2 1/2 inch beginner crap, most of it not worth foolign with unless you’ve never used a scope and have no idea if it’s something you want to spend $300 on. Or more. As a purely beginner scope, you’ll know if it gets your interest. I started on a Meade 2 1/4 inch refractor. 2 months and I wanted a bigger scope.
Avoid the short tube newtonian scopes, they add extra lenses to shorten the tube length, and that degrades image quality. Each piece off glass mens more optical interference, image degradation.
I got my Orion as a christmas present, I think it came from ebay, under $200. The 1.25 inch eyepiece lenses in mine are nice, 2 inch eyepieces are great. I had a chance to see Jupiter through a 14 inch with 2 inch eyepieces, I wanted to throw my 6 inch away.
Take your time, check into some local astronomy groups and maybe a couple of star parties, you’ll get a chance to check out quite a few scope options that way. Id love to go to another star party or 3 but we have no astronomical club around here, not even at the college a half hour away.
You get the clearest skies on the coldest nights. I’ve used mine on nights when I had to pack it in because ice was forming on my eyelenses...28 degrees outside, 3AM and I’m standing around in a goose down long coat looking at Saturn...no, I’m not crazy...cops stopped and checked me out...ummm...what are you up to out here? 15 miles outside town parked in the driveway to somebody’s corn field...plowed of course, it was January...but I like it...