which telescope to buy?

[shivvy]

I want to buy a telescope as a gift but have no knowledge of what type, cost, make or model to buy. The person I am buying for is also a novice to star-gazing but I would like to buy something more than the most basic available.
I am not sure if it is relevant, but the telescope would be used 'out-of-town' ie a non-smoggy sky.
Can anyone advise?
Thanks

[Clanad]

This was discussed a while ago with some good answers... check here:

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Questio n270500.html

Best of luck!

[Phantaxus]

best bit of advice I had for buying a telescope was "dont buy the biggest one you can afford buy the biggest one you can use"

[jake-the-peg]

General rules of thumb:

Ignore claims of magnification this is determined by the eyepiece what is important is the diameter of the lens or mirror (how much light it can grab)

Secondly how good is the mirror or lenses - cheaper mirrors tend to be ground to a spherical shape and will suffer to some extent from what is called spherical aberation better quality mirrors are parabolic in shape and produce a much better sharper image.

Thirdly the mount is important. You'll want what is called an equatorial mount - preferably motorised. This means that as the object crosses the sky it's easy to keep track of it. This is especially important if you want to be able to take photographs through it at a later stage. Astronomical photographs take a very long time and the better the mount and drive the better result.

As ever you have to pay for quality but paying more money doesn't always guarantee it.

Have a look at some of the telescopes here:
http://www.telescopes-direct.com/

You certainly get more for you money now than when I first bought a telescope 30 years ago

[shivvy]

Great - thanks for all your excellent advice.
I am not too concerned about price so what do you think would be a reasonible price range to consider for my needs?

[jake-the-peg]

Well if you try that link and click "the telescopes" and click on TH160 and scroll down a bit you'll see a parabolic Newtonian with a 6" (150MM) mirror for �350 or a similar one right below it with a 200mm mirror for �650

The price tends to go up exponentially with diameter

[derek55]

You cant go wrong visiting www.skysthelimit.org.uk - I bought a spotting scope from Alan & got loads of good, professional free advice. Check it out