Thanks for all the advice from everyone. I read a long time ago that
a good starting point for amateur telescopes was either a 4 inch
refractor or a 6 inch reflector, and given that it seems to be a lot
cheaper to buy a large reflector than a small refractor, I was
investigating reflectors more. I'll check out how portable refractors
can be.
At the moment I'm using a pair of Sunagor binoculars that are
amazing. They are zoom binoculars that are 20X-120X by 70mm. The sky
tonight is about as clear as it gets, and so I can see about 15 stars
out towards the back of the house. To give you an idea of how poor
the visibility is, I can just make out the Pleiades, and I can only
see four of the five stars of Casseopeia's W. The number of stars
visibly is just a bit less than you see in SN when you set the Large
City light pollution on.
My sequence of viewing these days is to find Andromeda (I have a
tripod that takes the binoculars high enough that I can look straight
up without bending my legs. Being 5ft 3in has it's advantages
sometimes). I know where to look, so I've even managed to find it
sometimes without star hopping. At 20X Andromeda is a feint fuzz
ball, at 120X it's only really visible due to the movement of the
tripod making its motion stand out.
I have a tall tree in the garden (or to be more accurate, my landlord
does), and so I have to wait until close to midnight for Saturn to
appear. At 20X you can convince yourself that you can see the rings,
but the whole planet looks white, and there are bumps at the bottom
left and top right that you wouldn't bet your life on being the
rings. Still, you feel sure that you are seeing them. At 120X it's
easy to see Titan, and you can see the dark areas between the rings
and Saturn. One trick I use is to then pull my eyes back a few
inches. What happens is that it feels as if I'm looking through a
small window to an almost Moon size Saturn floating nearby. The gap
between the rings and the planet becomes really noticeable.
Next up I take a look at the Pleiades, but that's not so satisfying,
because at the lowest magnification I'm still zoomed in too far.
Still it's interesting to zoom in further and see the dimmer stars
resolve themselves. That's something I can't figure out how to do in
SN, because the photograph of the Pleiades always seems to be visible.
Lastly, I check in with Jupiter to see where the moons are at. When I
looked earlier there were three visible, now there's just the two
because Io has popped around the back, and Ganymede isn't away from
being in front of Jupiter yet. Sometimes, like now, I can just about
see a bit of texture in Jupiter. Only a couple of bands show up,
otherwise it's all white.
Well, you might see that I get some good use out of my binoculars
given the sky conditions. I suppose that if I can do that with 70mm
lenses that it should be possible to do better with a 3 or 4 inch
refractor.
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