![]() Qualifications in astronomy, having been a director of an astronomical company, and with over forty years experience in observational astronomy, I hope you will trust my informed guidance in this Guide you to the 'trainers section' (A good durable shoe that is suitable for many, many different activities!)Īllow me to guide you towards your first 'scope with an explanation of the considerations you need to make while choosing. You wouldn't wear high heel stilettos to a tennis match - Or use an f15 refractor for Deep Sky Objects. Others, the ones I will guide you to, are suitable for many applications. There are many different telescope types and the reason for this is different subjects require different optical perameters.Ĭhoosing the right one for you is a bit like choosing shoes! There are many different types of shoe, and some are suitable only for certain activities. Telescope that you will be able to keep using for many years without great expense.Īny telescope is better than no telescope at all, but very small telescopes have very limitedĪpplications in astronomy and will soon have you wanting to see more. My advice will save you throwing away money and will get you a If you buy yourself the wrong one, you may end up giving up on astronomy because your expectations have been let down. Some “GO TO”s let you choose a guided tour of the best celestial showpieces, complete with a digital readout describing what’s known about each object.S ooner or later, if you're interested in astronomy, you'll decide you want a Once you’ve entered the current date, time, and your location (and many newer models don’t even require you to do that), the scope can point itself to, and track, thousands of celestial objects. ![]() In the more advanced models of this type, often called “GO TO” telescopes, a small computer is built into the hand control. Some telescopes come with small motors to move them around the sky with the push of a keypad button. These tend to be larger and heavier than alt-az designs to use an equatorial mount properly you’ll also need to align it to Polaris, the North Star. A more involved mechanism, designed to track the motion of the stars by turning on a single axis, is termed an equatorial mount. Many reflectors come on an elegantly simple wooden platform, known as a Dobsonian, that’s a variation of the alt-az mount. On some mounts the scope swings left and right, up and down, just as it would on a photo tripod these are known as altitude-azimuth (or simply alt-az) mounts. Mounts designed specifically for telescopes usually forgo the single-screw attachment blocks in favour of larger, more robust rings or plates. Be aware that a tripod that’s good enough for taking your family snapshots may not be steady enough for astronomy. Many telescopes come conveniently packaged with tripods or mounts (see our Telescope Kits). Your telescope will need something sturdy to support it. Or, more precisely, they do stand still, but they appear to move across the sky as Earth rotates underneath you. Celestial objects don’t stand still for you to look at. Allow the telescope to move extremely smoothly.Keep the telescope from shaking – at high power, every little wobble or vibration is magnified so much that the whole image can become un-viewable.Hellostronomers consider their telescope’s mount to be equally as important as the telescope/optical tube – and sometimes spend more money on the mount than what is sitting on top of it. And regardless of how bright or dark your skies are, the view through a telescope with plenty of aperture is more impressive than the view of the same object through a smaller scope. But you’d probably need a 6- or 8-inch telescope to see those same galaxies from a typical suburban backyard. ![]() For example, from a dark location you can spot dozens of galaxies beyond our own Milky Way through a scope with an aperture of 80 mm (3.1 inches). But a good small scope can still show you plenty - especially if you live far from city lights. As a rule of thumb, your telescope should have at least 2.8 inches (70 mm) aperture - and preferably more.Ī larger aperture lets you see fainter objects and finer detail than a smaller one can. The aperture’s diameter (D) will be expressed either in millimeters or, less commonly, in inches (1 inch equals 25.4 mm). Look for the telescope’s specifications near its focuser, at the front of the tube, or on the box. ![]() The most important characteristic of a telescope is its aperture - the diameter of its light-gathering lens or mirror, often called the objective. ![]()
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