>>1322200>>13221981. go on craigslist
2. search "telescope" get whatever you can pick up for a good deal.
this is literally the best possible advice.
for moon / planets: get a refactor telescope. they are generally long and thin.
for star clusters / galaxies etc... : get a reflector telescope. they tend to be thicc and are good at taking in a lot of light.
>>1322210stellarium is goat
here's a quick rundown for everything a newbie should know.
1. planets look pretty fuzzy because the atmosphere is in the way. the closer planets are to the horizon, the blurrier they'll be. when you have a planet in your sights keep looking at it for a while because with time the atmosphere you're looking through might calm down for a few seconds and give you a really sharp view of whatever you're looking at.
2. zoom is useless. don't worry about how much you can actually zoom in, because since the atmosphere makes everything fuzzy, you end up just making the image bigger without making it clearer, if that makes sense. and with nebulae and galaxes they're generally big enough so you don't actually zoom that much into them.
3. don't bother trying to look at anything other than planets in your back yard. it took me like a year to finally just drive an hour out to a dark zone and i felt like a retard for standing in my back yard trying to see dim galaxies all that time when i could have just driven like 1.5 hours and spent a good night with my bros camping out. just use
www.darksitefinder.com to find low light pollution and
www.clearoutside.com to check the weather. clouds become your enemy after a while. pro tip: make sure the dark site you go to is colored dark green or better. anything else sucks in comparison.
4. get binoculars.
