I made my first reflecting telescope including grinding & polishing the mirror back in the early 1960s. I still make mirrors & build Dobsonian telescopes around them and sell them. I have made both a mirror grinding/polishing machine and figuring machine. Making mirrors by hand bigger than 10" is a lot of hard work.
My recommendation is to get an 8" Dobsonian telescope. And if one is handy you can make your own including grinding/polishing/figuring the mirror. There is a ton of info about doing this on the web. And if you want to watch John Dobson himself make a Dob go here.
You could also buy a mirror, secondary mirror, focuser and make the Dob mount. Most of the less expensive Dobs on the market like from Meade, Celestron, Orion have decent optics but the mounts are made out of particle board. Heavy & short lived if it gets wet, which it will. So making a Dob mount out of something like 1/2" Baltic Birch makes it lighter, stronger, and purdier.
A couple of things about eyepieces. These are some very good eyepieces out there that aren't all that spendy. And there are some really spendy eyepieces out there too. If you wear glasses as I do and want to observe with them on you need to use an eyepiece that has at least 17mm or greater of eye relief, the distance from the surface of the glass to where the image comes to a focus. And usually the shorter the focal length of an eyepiece the shorter the eye relief, unless you spend some big money. I have gotten around this by buying a decent Barlow. A Barlow reduces the focal length of an eyepiece but does not affect the eye relief.
If anyone has any questions about telescope feel free to PM me.
My recommendation is to get an 8" Dobsonian telescope. And if one is handy you can make your own including grinding/polishing/figuring the mirror. There is a ton of info about doing this on the web. And if you want to watch John Dobson himself make a Dob go here.
You could also buy a mirror, secondary mirror, focuser and make the Dob mount. Most of the less expensive Dobs on the market like from Meade, Celestron, Orion have decent optics but the mounts are made out of particle board. Heavy & short lived if it gets wet, which it will. So making a Dob mount out of something like 1/2" Baltic Birch makes it lighter, stronger, and purdier.
A couple of things about eyepieces. These are some very good eyepieces out there that aren't all that spendy. And there are some really spendy eyepieces out there too. If you wear glasses as I do and want to observe with them on you need to use an eyepiece that has at least 17mm or greater of eye relief, the distance from the surface of the glass to where the image comes to a focus. And usually the shorter the focal length of an eyepiece the shorter the eye relief, unless you spend some big money. I have gotten around this by buying a decent Barlow. A Barlow reduces the focal length of an eyepiece but does not affect the eye relief.
If anyone has any questions about telescope feel free to PM me.
