Hi all,

Friend's birthday is coming up and we are all collaborating to get him a telescope. I was planning to get him an Orion Skyquest XT8 but the delivery costs are prohibitive since the shipping alone is €485 exceeding the price of the telescope :(

Since most of the people here have space-fever, great knowledge of telescopes is a guarantee.

I am planning to make the purchase from http://www.astroshop.eu but if you can point to another European shop that would be nice.

Basically l am searching for something simple but not a telescope aimed for kids. Ability to hook it up with a laptop for easily locating objects would be nice but not required.

In addition if anyone has any idea for any compatible solar filters(so that you can view the sun without injuring your eyes would be nice).

Our budget is €500.
Thanks in advance,

Well, I by all my telescope equipment from Teleskopservice. They have an English page as well. I don't know how much they charge you for shipping, though.

I just had a brief look at the Orion Skyquest XT8 that you mentioned. If you want to hook it up to a laptop for auto-guiding, be sure to by a suitable mounting. Dobsonians are pratically useless for auto-guiding (well, at least there are no standard kits for them that I am aware of. You'd have to build the control and mechanics yourself).

An 8" Newton including a reasonable equatorial mounting is likely to bust your €500 limit. If you can live without auto-find and auto-guide and if you don't want to take any photographs a Dobson is quite OK.

I bought an Orion telescope and it is great, no problems with it. http://telescope.com They give information and links to other international sites/ companies.

Orion does make solar filters for certain models. I have one for mine and it works great to look at the sun with. Able to see sunspots and all.

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