How To Buy A Good Telescope

Although it is possible to have many hours of pleasure observing the night sky using the naked eye or binoculars, at some point in every amateur astronomer’s career the decision is made to buy a telescope.

With the huge number of telescopes (and types of telescope) available, deciding which is the right one to buy can be a tough decision. So it pays to do a little research to find a telescope that suits your individual needs.

Some things to think about when you’re buying a telescope:

Portability

Smaller telescopes are easier to carry and move around and are better suited to being set up quickly, taken to sites away from home or better suited to people who have back problems (the last thing you want to do is put your back out, lugging heavy equipment in the dark!)

Aperture

How well a telescope performs is determined by its aperture – the diameter of the telescope’s main mirror or lens. The more light a telescope can gather, the fainter the objects you can see with it. A bigger telescope will also have greater resolution, which allows you to see finer details on planets and deep-sky objects and enables you to split double stars better.

Your Local Conditions

Neon-glow skies are part of the modern world, drowning out all but the brightest stars and planets. Telescopes see deeper into the night sky than the naked eye but they, too, are subject to the effects of light pollution. Filters are one of the most frequently purchased telescope accessories and when used with a telescope can cut the effects of light pollution, but to get the best views of the night sky, you need to travel to a dark sky site. Large telescopes can be difficult to move in such cases, so a portable telescope is the best option when traveling. Big telescopes are more suited to a backyard observatory and a permanent or semi-permanent setup.

Telescope Prices

It’s fair to say that a decent telescope will cost of the order of a few hundred dollars, minimum, for something like a 6-inch Dobsonian reflector.

No telescope is perfect. Low-end refractors can suffer from chromatic abberation (color fringes around bright objects like the Moon). Reflectors may need to be collimated frequently (especially Newtonian telescopes) – collimation means getting the primary and secondary mirrors parallel so the entire field of view is in focus. But if you can live with such minor issues or they just don’t bother you, then you will get many years of enjoyment from your telescope.

Telescope Accessories

In previous years, Digital Setting Circles where sold as extras for telescopes. These allowed a telescope to be very accurately pointed at particular co-ordinates in the sky. These have now been surpassed by GoTo mounts. Such mounts include a computer which contains a database of all the objects in the sky and can point the telescope to any of those objects at the click of a couple of buttons. Getting your telescope aligned beforehand is crucial to how accurate a GoTo mount is in pointing. GoTo mounts also contain information on each object, will track the sky automatically (so the object of interest won’t drift out of the field of view) and most also contain tours that will take you on a journey to the more interesting objects in the sky.

Conclusion

Your lifestyle will dictate the best type of telescope for you. There’s no use buying an 8-inch reflector if you live in an apartment and have to haul it up to the roof to use it. A small refractor would be a better choice.

Buying from a dedicated telescope store is the best course of action. They’ll be able to advise you on your individual needs.

The more money you spend, the better the telescope you can buy so spend as much as you can without overspending. Check the resale value of the used telescope you’re interested in (on eBay for example) in case you want to sell it at a later date (and buy a better telescope).

Don’t buy a 60mm refractor or a 4 inch reflector – they’re too small and restrict what you can see in the night sky. Go for a 6-inch reflector (a Dobsonian) or an 80mm refractor instead.

Remember, above all, you’re buying a telescope to appreciate the wonders of the night sky, not to give you back trouble or frustration because it’s too awkward to move! Buy a telescope that you will actually use, not one you think would be great but that will never actually get used in practice.

Buy a meteorite at our used telescope store. They make great gifts!

Equipment for The Amateur Astronomer: Good Astronomy Binoculars For Beginners

Telescopes and binoculars and other astronomy accessories and are the meat and potatoes of amateur astronomy.

What helped me familiarise myself with the night sky was a good set of binoculars. It was only after using them for a couple of years that I upgraded to a telescope.

That was one of the department store 60mm telescopes we’re all warned about, but my folks didn’t know any better, and to a 12-year old kid, it opened up the universe.

Astronomy Binoculars For Beginners

Binoculars have a role to play in astronomy. A good pair costs less than a telescope and is a good entry point for someone familiarising themselves with the night sky.

They don’t provide the same magnifications as a telescope (but magnification isn’t everything) but binoculars do show a much wider field of view which makes it easier to navigate across the sky.

Because of this wider field of view, you also get to see the ‘big’ picture. And, because you’re using both eyes, there’s less eyestrain.

Binocular viewers are available for telescopes and those who use them (even though they cost a couple of hundred dollars and you need two eyepieces for each one) swear by them (rather than at them!). However, since these are a piece of specialised equipment, they will cost more than a pair of binoculars.

A typical set of binoculars will be 10×50s (10x magnification and front lenses 50mm in diameter). More powerful models are available – 20×60s are available from $150 upwards and you can get 20×80s for as little as $90 (yes, cheaper than 20×60s).

Astronomy binoculars are quite heavy and you’ll get tired quickly pointing them skyward for any length of time. Also, due to their higher magnification, any tremor in your hands will also be enlarged and stars will dart around in the view.

If you plan to look at the sky for extended periods, you’d be advised to use a tripod with a binocular adaptor. This lets you securely mount the astronomy binoculars on it and easily point them around the sky without strain.

Large scale objects such as comets or the Moon are well suited to astronomy binoculars. The Moon through 20x binoculars can be breathtaking, bringing it close enough to see relief in craters and mountains but you’ll see it in 3d as well, something that doesn’t happen when looking through a telescope because you only use a single eye with one.

Astronomy binoculars for beginners are available from a wide range of manufacturers: Barska, Zhumell, Celestron, Meade, Canon, and Pentax.

Serious amateur astronomers may want to invest in top-brand models from Nikon, Vixen, Kowa and Fujinon. Expect to pay $1,000 and upwards to $5,600 depending on the make and model. Why would anyone want to pay that kind of price for a pair of binoculars? They’re the best instrument for comet hunting for one. The 3-D view they give makes you feel like you’re out in space. The better models use interchangeable eyepieces so you can change the magnification and field of view.

Conclusion

You can start using a pair of binoculars much more quickly than setting up a telescope so if you have very changeable weather where you live, they’re probably a better option for sky viewing. Of course, you can throw a pair of binoculars into your luggage very easily and view the sky from your holiday destination with ease.

All in all, binoculars are a much better option for casual viewers because of their portability, daytime and night-time use and their cost in comparison to a decent telescope.

As with almost everything else in life, you get what you pay for. There are binoculars that cost under $10 (being cheap in every sense of the word) and other specialised astronomy binoculars which cost in excess of $5,600. My experience says you will need to spend at least $90 for a pair of binoculars that are worth owning, but $140-300 is a more common price range for astronomy binoculars.

Gary Nugent has pursued astronomy as a hobby for over three decades. He runs one of the best-known astronomy and space news websites – the Night Sky Observer where you can learn more astronomy facts. His site has been online since 1997.

categories: amateur astronomy,astronomy,science,binoculars,telescopes,hobbies,hobby