I have now completed my first stage or internet research and have draw up a short list of possible telescopes which are available on eBay.

• Phenix 114mm reflector
• Celestron 675x Magnification
• Tasco Galaxsee reflector
• Skywatcher Explorer 130mm reflector
• Seben Telescope

Well this is my short list but as I said early there are thousands to choose from. Some look too cheap to be any good and some had such a poor description I did not believe the seller new anything about the item. For instance a ‘Celestron 675x magnification’ is one such statement this tells you nothing about the scope and even I knew be this time that 675x magnification was not likely to give good results. The main think I have discovered was some brand names which I could now research in more detail. I did this by entering the full description such as ‘Skywatcher Explorer 130mm reflector’ this produced a good quality list of results mainly of online retailers and by looking to their site produced a good list of possible telescopes at my price range. I also found that Seben and Phenix telescope look to only available on eBay. This is somewhat a worry to me as whatever you buy you need backup spare parts and a system which can grow with you.

• We short list now look like the one bellow but Skywatch have hundreds of models and so do Celestron, so how do you choose!
• Skywatcher Explorer 130
• Skyhawk-1145PM
• Startravel-80
• Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Telescope
• Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ Reflector

My next thought is that I would have to speak to a dealer and get some advice what would I be able to see how large does it have to be and will I be able to take photos later. A quick search reviled Venturescope looked to have a good range for telescopes and from what I could see people who look as if they knew what they were about. The telephone call was very useful and I received some very good advice which can down to telescopes.

• Skywatcher Explorer 130 EQ2 - £137.00
• Skywatcher Explorer 150P EQ3-2 - £235.00

With the preferences for the Explorer 150 which at this time a little over that I wished to pay and possible slightly larger than I had room for. The advice a felt was good the larger the scope the better it would be the more you pay the better image and the mount. You don’t think about the mount when you start out to but a telescope but from all accounts it’s as important as the telescope. I now felt that I did need 150mm reflector but was still not clear as to what I would be able to see with it and the fact that none of the website I had seen gave any indication to what you may see . It looks to me as someone is missing a trick here what a selling point show what the telescope can do they you can make a comparison between models, you would have less disappointed customers and probably sell larger (and therefore more expensive) telescopes.

My next step is to investigate the Skywatch make and look on Ebay to see if I can buy a Explorer 150 second hand or at a bargain price.