I already went through this a few years ago. I bought my oldest son a telescope, and while we could see down the road great (license plates), celestial bodies couldn’t be seen at all. I paid about $150 for it.
I still REALLY want a telescope to view the stars with my youngest son now, but don’t know what I’m looking for so as not to make the same silly mistake again getting to only view license plates from afar!!
If you have any information as to what kind of lens strengths I’m looking for, I’d appreciate the help. Thanks,
Here’s what I said before, regarding a similar question:
"Just remember that the best first telescope is a pair of binoculars!
1. They're easy to use, light and portable (and thus will be used)
2. They give an upright, left-right preserved image
3. If you give up on stargazing, they're still great for sports, bird-watching, ...
4. For the same dollar amount, a pair of binoculars is always of much better quality than its
equal-priced telescope counterpart.
Whatever you do, never buy a telescope from a department store or mall
photo-developing shop. Never. Its quality will be very poor. And ... never buy a
telescope where the manufacturer or seller makes a big deal about how much it
magnifies. It is a lie."
AND I already HAVE the binoculars, I just never thought they’d see very far!! And, you’re on target about how I got the first telescope, the department store guy went on and on about how much it magnified…he just didn’t mention that it mainly helps to read license plates!
Glad you asked instead of just buying a department store telescope! First of all, I agree with KarlGauss - a pair of binoculars is extremely useful for amateur astronomy, probably better than a comparably priced telescope. When I go out to do stargazing, I pack my binoculars and then think whether I also want my telescope.
However, the problem with binoculars is that they don’t look quite as cool, and you can’t see any planets. That is, you can’t see any features on them, such as the rings of Saturn. So if you decide to get a telescope, the most important things to keep in mind are:
[ul]
[li]A telescope is not a device for magnifying things. It’s a device for collecting more light than your naked eyes can, so you can see darker things. It’s the size of the lens/mirror (i.e. the aperture) that matters, not magnification. Never buy a telescope that advertises high magnification.[/li][li]The most important part of the telescope is the mount - the tripod and the movement mechanism. A shaky mount makes a telescope useless, especially at high magnification. [/ul][/li]
There are three types of mounts - equatorial, alt-azimuth and Dobsonian. Equatorial mounts have tilted axes to make it easier to follow the stars as they drift across the sky. Problem is, they are very complex and difficult to set up. Alt-az mounts just have up/down and sidways movements and are much simpler to use. A Dobsonian mount is a simplified version of the alt-az mount. It has no gears or slow-motion controls; it just stays in place by friction. To move the telescope, just push the tube. It takes a bit of getting used to to use at high magnification, but they are extremely stable and easy to use. For a beginner, I’d recommend a Dobsonian or a good quality alt-az mount.
I haven’t bought a telescope in a few years, but Orion Telescopes and Binoculars used to be a very good mail-order store, and probably still is. Their StarQuest 4.5-inch aperture Dobsonian for $200, and may be a reasonable choice. Other than that, they list some refractors with alt-az mounts ranging from $90 to - well, the sky’s the limit.
It’d be even better if you could find a real telescope shop and talk to the people. Maybe you could tell us where you are and someone knows of one nearby. And when you get the telescope ask us again about how best to use it.
Anti pro
We did just the opposite of what you did.
We bought a telescope capable of star gazing. I think our son looked through it about 6 times. Even if he could find the star he was looking for it was only a bright dot.
He would have used a spotting scope much more.
Most people are disappointed with telescopes because they have totally unrealistic expectations. They have seen published photos of galaxies and think they can see similar things. They do not realize those photos were taken with multimillion dollar telescopes (maybe in orbit). So they go and buy a $100 telescope and want to see the little green men who live in Mars (it is Mars, isn’t it?)
Another thing - if you live in the city, it would be nice if you could give him a chance to do some stargazing away from the city. The city lights seriously limit the ability of a telescope - not just the nearby streetlights, but the light from the whole city illuminating the sky. Besides no child should grow up never having seen the Milky Way.
My boyfriend bought me a telescope as a gift a few years ago, and while it is a cheap (around $300…if you call that cheap) model, it lets me see Jupiter’s moons and the rings of Saturn. I usually bring my binocs out when I stargaze along with the 'scope.
I enjoy using it, I just wish we didn’t live on the side of a big hill! It has whetted my appitite and I would love to get a bigger/more powerful telescope.
I agree with all of the above advice, and would add this: when you have a telescope (even a good one), it takes a while to learn how to use it! Don’t give up on the scope you already have… did you look at the moon through it? If not, give it a try: this will give you a good idea of how hard it is to get something you want to see into the eyepiece in the first place (took me a good half-hour to find the moon with my first telescope! But it was worth it!). When you learn how to find things, I think you might be surprised what you can see with even a cheap telescope (the first time I saw Saturn, completely by accident, I was amazed!! It looked like a picture right out of Sky & Telescope! And that was with a $100 department store scope.) Be realistic, however… those photos of galaxies and planets you see in magazines use color filters (through a home scope, expect most everything to look black and white, even if you buy a $4000 monster scope. Magazine photos, also, are almost always time-lapse photos… IE: the scope is pointed at a galaxy, the camera shutter is opened, and left open for a long time (minutes in some cases, hours in other cases…) Even with a good home scope, a galaxy like M-31 (Andromeda) will look like a smudge of light… but it’s still a thrill to realize you’re looking at something 200 million light years away!
Now, the magnification issue: department stores push magnification because the salespeople don’t know anything about amateur astronomy. For a home scope, generally, 100X is about the most magnification you’ll want to use. Ever. I find that most of the time I’m operating at about 50X to 60X… more important, as other have said, is aperature size. And that can add a lot of money to your scope!! What do you REALLY want to look at? If it’s stars, regardless of magnification/quality/aperature, what you’ll see is a point of light… go with binoculars! If you want to look at the moon, and a few planets; a $150 department store scope is actually pretty good for a start (when you get into it, you’ll want to buy a better scope). If you want to look at galaxies, nebula, clusters, etc.; you’ll want some aperature for this! Many people think that the bigger the aperature, the better… and this is true up to a point (but can add mega-bucks to the price-tag!!) For a starter scope for nebulae and galaxies, I’d go with some type of reflecting telescope (the kind with the mirror in it, instead of lenses… there are several types, all with good points and bad points) with an aperature of 5 or 6 inches, with a good mount (the Dobsonian mounts mentioned by others are good for beginners).
Above all, learn how to use it!! Don’t expect to drag it out into the yard and be able to look at Saturn the first night… using a telescope is a skill that you have to develop over a few nights of trial and error…
One more thing: DON’T use it to look at the sun without some experience and a GOOD solar filter in place!!! May sound dumb, but I almost blinded myself one morning looking for sunspots with a hangover… (I’d put a smiley here if i knew how… gotta learn how to do that one of these days!)
There are tons of amateur astronomy sites that will give you info on buying a telescope. Sky and Telescope magazine also has a good area containing various tips about viewing, telescopes, and other topics.
One more tip: find your local astronomy club and attend a viewing night. You will get plenty of tips and will see exactly what various scopes show. To find a club, you can search the Web or contact a local planetarium, science museum, or university astronomy department.
Meade is the leading manufacturer of amateur telescopes in the US and probably world wide. Just to rub in the point on power, the following is from the Meade website’s support page…
In fact, having too high a power is a bad thing because it will result in fuzzy images. If whoever is selling you a telescope doesn’t know something as basic as this, you ought to find another store right away. Buy an introductory guide to amateur skywatching if you’re not sure. After that, you just need to use Your Sky to locate your target…
You already have binocs (personally, I recommend 10x50) and it sounds like you are seriously interested in stargazing (and won’t give up after a couple viewings). So, it seems you’re ready for a real telescope. Make it one you like too in case your son does not get into it.
Like everyone said, forget magnification. Go for the biggest aperature you can afford.
4 to 5 inches - - decent, but limited (good for viewing the moon, seeing 2 cloud bands on Jupiter, Saturn, seeing some binary star systems, star clusters, small images of some nebulae/galaxies)
6 to 8 inches - - what I’d buy for casual amateur astronomy…not too expensive and a minumum for deep-sky stuff
12 inches - - awesome, but may be too much for a casual observer (too expensive, too bulky)
Then there’s type…
reflector (open tube with mirror…eyepiece at front) - - good quality images (I have this type)
refractor (closed tube with lenses…eyepiece at end) - - decent quality images & less maintenance than a reflector
Dobsonian - - big reflector on flat mount - - good way to get big aperature for less money…but the mount has some limitations
etc. etc. Check some of the links provided.
There are all kinds of bells and whistles to consider (but they’re not necessary) such as motor driven mounts & computerized locators. Nice, but expensive. I wouldn’t recommend these unless you plan to do a lot of serious viewing. It would be overkill if you just plan to star-hop now and then.
Do you live in the city or country? Light pollution in the cities/suburbs ruins most astronomy and may be frustrating if you just spend a lot on a telescope. If you need to drive to country areas, then consider portability (weight, size, set-up requirements). Refractors may hold-up to car travel better than reflectors (lenses held in place rather than a mirror which may get out of alignment).
I spent the last six months talking about and looking through telescopes, so I’ve got a good idea of what’s out there. It all started in May, when I bought my SO a telescope for his birthday. My budget was a little bigger than yours, so I ended up with a Meade ETX-90. It was very cool, all computerized, etc. Within days, SO had brought it back and upgraded to an ETX-120 (the same scope, just a little bigger). Since then, we’ve gone through 4 scopes, and we now have a Meade 10" LX-200, to the tune of several thousand dollars. Little did I know what I was starting…
That said, if you don’t want to spend that much $$, I’d go the Dobsonian route. Yes, they’re big. Yes, they’re bulky. But I’ve done side by side comparisions, and the Dobsonians really do give you GREAT viewing, for a small price. I don’t know about $150 - that might be too low to expect anything good - but if you can shell out a little more I’d go with something like a 4.5 to 6" Dobsonian (http://www.telescope.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=A032).
The drawbacks of these kinds of scopes is that you do have to put some time & effort into figuring out how to find things. It can be pretty hard at times. My advice is to go to your local astronomy club (almost all areas have one) and attend some star parties. You’ll pick up tips there in half the time it would take you to figure it out from a book.
Yeah, definitely don’t overlook the Meade ETX-series or DS-series scopes, or the Celestron NexStar scopes. Both have a wide range of both reflectors and refractors in various apertures and focal lengths, all equipped with electronic “Go-To” controllers.
The benefit to this (as mentioned in an editorial last year in Sky & Telescope) is that it helps to get people more interested in astronomy and science if they can actually find things in the sky. Rather than having to spend time fussing with equatorial mounts, figuring out Right Ascension and Declination, and getting frustrated when they can’t find anything, people can start with an affordable scope of decent aperture and locate things easily, which will stimulate their interest.
My only scope right now is a Meade 114mm f/8 reflector, which is excellent for lunar and planetary observing, my primary interest. I’m considering buying a short-tube refractor or some good image-stablizing binos for my trip to Maui in January, though.
Shorter scopes are much more comfortable to use, but short refractors tend not to work well. I was once told that the smallest refracor to get would be 4 inches at F/12 or F/14, and cheap refractors tend to have focal lengths much shorter than that. That only leaves the complex types that start at a couple grand and go up from there. That they are so much more confortable to use is the reason why the short scopes got computerized drives first. Only now are low-priced companies offering computerized drives built into cheap mounts, for small cheap refractors and Newtonians.
And where you live has a major impact on if this is an attractive hobby or not. Where I live now there are mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes, all the time, especially at night, except in the winter when the temperature is around freezing. Mosquito repellent tarnishes mirrors, and removes some lens coatings. ~ I thought about buying a telescope a couple of times, but I concluded that I simply would not get much use out of it.
Big Newtonians with the right accessories give the best views, but they are the most uncomfortable to use. - MC
I have a great little 80mm short-tube refractor from Orion. In Astronomy magazine (and probably in Orion’s print catalog), they’re listed as $289, including an equatorial mount (much better than a camera tripod, believe me!). It’s a great beginner’s scope, and it’s very portable. I also got the canvas carrying case, which makes trucking it around even easier. You can also buy different eyepieces to up the magnification, and filters and camera attachments and all sorts of other fun things, so you’ll never be at a loss for Christmas presents! I highly recommend it. It can also be used for non-astronomical viewing, if you’re interested. Good luck scope-shopping!
I have a great little 80mm short-tube refractor from Orion. In Astronomy magazine (and probably in Orion’s print catalog), they’re listed as $289, including an equatorial mount (much better than a camera tripod, believe me!). It’s a great beginner’s scope, and it’s very portable. I also got the canvas carrying case, which makes trucking it around even easier. You can also buy different eyepieces to up the magnification, and filters and camera attachments and all sorts of other fun things, so you’ll never be at a loss for Christmas presents! I highly recommend it. It can also be used for non-astronomical viewing, if you’re interested. Good luck scope-shopping!
