What to Remember When Looking for a Great Telescope
When you find yourself shopping for a telescope, you should look into buying a good pair of binoculars first. Then you most probably want to consider either a small Newtonian reflector or a Schmidt Cassegrain, to offer you several hours of viewing entertainment.
If you are thinking of getting into astronomy, congratulations! This really is a great hobby. Nonetheless, here are several recommendations before you go shopping:
• Spend a few nights becoming acquainted with the constellations. Get a full star map and understand where the major planets and stars are for your area.
• To make this less complicated and more fun, your first buy may possibly be a good pair of binoculars. You may already have an old pair in your home. We suggest having a decent pair of 7X50s, or 10X50s. This actually is a great investment if you are interested in telescopes and astronomy. You will always want to have a pair of binoculars for your observing sessions with your telescope. A good pair can last you for years.
• You should also consider becoming a member of the local astronomy club. You can study a lot about the stars, but just as importantly: You will definitely get to see real telescope equipment in use. This is amazing since you can see what you like and do not like in real operation. As an example, you might be thinking about a 10” Dobsonian reflector, as it is a lot of telescope aperture for a good price. But one of those is a beast to transport around and won’t fit in a compact car easily.
So once you actually get down to purchasing your telescope, you should bear in mind that generally, the bigger the aperture (diameter of the telescope’s mirrors or lenses), the better. Greater aperture means a brighter, better image.
The type the majority of people think of is the refractor telescope. Light is gathered from the objective lens at the business end of the scope, and light is focused to the eyepiece and observer at the other end. Refractors in general provide the brightest and most detailed images per inch of aperture, simply because you have no mirrors or other interferences in the path of light. Nevertheless, chromatic aberration, or secondary color, is apparent in most refractors. Also, these are the priciest telescopes. Stores are guilty of selling cheap, terrible refractors.
The Newtonian reflector has a parabolic mirror at the end of the scope, and focuses the image at the very top of the scope, where the eyepiece and observer are. Another mirror is utilized to bounce the light back up the tube. This is the cheapest telescope design per aperture. However, you lose some contrast as a result of the mirror obstruction, and these scopes are very bulky.
The Schmidt Cassegrain design uses mirrors and lenses to fold the path of light back on itself, making for a tube that is very compact. It is the most compact of the three telescopes, and may be easily driven by a computer controlled drive. It is more costly than reflectors, and the image quality is lower usually than the other two designs.
All of these telescopes are excellent in their different ways.
Our suggestion for a beginner is either a small (6”) Newtonian reflector, or a small Schmidt Cassegrain scope. These both can provide countless hours of observing fun, are relatively compact, and are not that expensive.
