Now as you've done your research on telescopes, you've noticed there's a lot of accessories available for you to purchase. Now when I first started, and I've been here four and a half, five years, I took a lot of stuff out with me that I didn't need. I had seven, eight eyepieces, I had a bunch of different filters... I just had a lot of stuff that really wasn't practical, and now that I've got a little bit more experience I can share with you some things you may need, some things you may want, something that's really practical. First of all, the GoTo telescopes, if you get a scope with electronic drive, they run off of batteries, but they don't come with a power cord. So typically the first thing I send you out with is a power cord so you can get off those batteries. If you have a Cassegrain telescope like this guy right here, you've got to be concerned about dew point, because dew will collect on this lens right here just like it does on the front of your car as it gets a little bit late at night. So this accessory right here is a must have for the Cassegrain to protect from dew. You can see it's felt lined inside here and as I slip it over the top of the telescope, it does not impede the view of telescope, and now the dew collects on the inside here as opposed to down on the corrector plate. Once your plate dews up you're really done observing for the night unless you got a hair dryer with you. I'm going to flip this around right here. We talked a little bit about diagonals--a big telescope like this will come with an inch and a quarter diagonal and an inch and a quarter eyepiece. For you to get that boom HD effect, a two inch diagonal should be an accessory to consider, and a nice big two inch eyepiece as well. You'll also see filters in the magazines, you'll wonder what the filters do. These filters thread on to the bottom of the eyepiece and they're mostly for planetary and lunar viewing, different colors of the eyepieces will bring out different characteristics of the planets, and a neutral density filter is kind of like putting a pair of sunglasses on your eyepiece. When you're looking at the moon as it gets fuller, it gets very bright. If you want to see some detail, you just cut down the density a little bit. So maybe a nice color filter set and a neutral density filter would be handy as well. Also, you're going to need a red flashlight. If you can get out away from the back yard, from the porch light, from the street lights, for your best viewing you really need to let your night vision adapt, and if you've got bright lights around you that's hard to do. So a guy like this, a red flashlight, is very handy to have, and as you get to viewing a little bit more, you'll like one with a dimmer switch on it because in the pitch black even that'll seem a little bit bright. I like this guy here because as I go the other way it's got a blue LED as well, and eventually I'm going to drop something in the dark or just need a little bit of light and it's still easy on my eyes and won't ruin my night vision too bad. The finder scope, as I talked about, kind of makes me want to be right up here when I'm looking at an object. A Telrad is not an uncommon accessory, even for a scope this size. I would set that right up there. It is a red dot finder, as I look through it I see a red dot projected on the screen, and then I can point it at the night sky with easy--more easier than I could with the finder scope. Easier on the neck, easier on the back--I like a red dot finder. If you're on a wooden deck or an unstable surface, which I don't really recommend, they have these little hockey pucks here that go under the tripod to help dampen suppression a little bit. Also, you're going to need a good Planosphere--something to show you, give you a point of reference, of where to point your telescope. Even with a GoTo telescope, once you go beyond the guided tour, you got to have a point of reference for where to point it, and we're going to go into that right after this.
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