Introduction To Stargazing With Binoculars. An Easy Way To Learn The Stars, Constellations, And Basic Astronomy.
Stargazing For Beginners.
Telescope is an exciting physics equipment. Buying a telescope is a daunting task for a newcomer. It all depends on your astronomy goals and careers. There is no perfect one which suits all observers in all conditions. You have to look for the features you want in your telescope and select the best one’s according to your requirement.
Selecting the proper type
The refractor type telescopes best suit for watching moon and major planets. Refractor telescopes are long & thin, and known for their sharp, detailed and contrasty images. They collect light through multi-element lenses. If you are just a starter then a small, quality achromatic refractor of 60 to 90 mm aperture would be a good one. The best thing about a refractor telescope is that they are inexpensive, portable and almost maintenance free. A refractor telescope is also useful when you will be mostly observing from city or the surrounding areas where the night skies are lightly polluted.
Reflector telescopes are also known as Newtonian telescopes. They are good for planetary as well as deep-sky viewing. However Newtonian telescopes are more fragile and need more maintenance than others. These telescopes collect light with a curved, concave mirror and with the help of their large apertures, they show fine, highly-resolved images. The reflector scopes are not suitable for terrestrial viewing because they produce an upside-down image.
Catadioptrics use both lenses and mirrors to collect and focus the incoming light. They are also called compound telescopes. Catadioptrics scopes are considered the most versatile telescopes and gives great all-around performance. They use a large aperture in very compact tubes. They show magnificent images of the moon, planets and faint deep-sky objects, when viewed in dark skies away from urban areas. These scopes are best suited for astrophotography. Compared to other two, these scopes have a wide range of accessories available. They can be entirely computer controlled.
Factors affecting the performance of a telescope
Aperture: Telescopes collect light from distant objects and focus it to produce images. The light collecting capacity of a telescope is the most important feature. It is the aperture of scope (diameter of mirror or lens) that is responsible for gathering light. Larger the aperture, the more light gathered, the more you’ll see.
Telescope Mounts: There are three basic mounts for telescopes altazimuth, Dobsonian, or equatorial. Altazimuth is the simplest type of mount, providing up-down, left-right motions. It is mainly recommended for terrestrial viewing and casual stargazing. The Dobsonian mount was basically designed for easy maneuvering of large reflectors of more than six inches. It is a boxy altaz-type mount sitting close to the ground. Equatorial mounts are designed for the purpose of astronomical viewing. These mounts are more expensive and complicated than the altazimuth mounts. With the help of these type of mounts users can track or follow the motion of celestial objects through the sky with a single manual hand control.
Magnification: Magnification should never top the priority for buying a telescope. The quality if image degrades with magnification. Practically 300X is maximum magnification for good quality images. Telescope’s magnification is also known as its power and it is adjusted by changing eyepieces. Ideally there should have been three eyepieces for the magnification of a scope: one low, one medium and one high. Lower powers of 30 – 50X are recommended for observing galaxies, star clusters and nebulae as they are spread over a wide area of sky. For observing the rings of Saturn, Jupiter, studying craters and valleys of the Moon’s surface medium power of 80 – 100X are advised. Higher powers of 150 – 200X allow the astronomers to observe mountain peaks and fine lunar detail, the surface features of Mars.
I am a laboratory analyst by profession working in this industry from last 10 years. I have been running a site http://www.laboratoryequipmentworld.com on laboratory equipments. It includes the largest range of laboratory apparatus and other updated info on market, trade fairs, news, etc.
I am a laboratory analyst by profession working in this industry from last 10 years.I have been running a site www.laboratoryequipmentworld.com on laboratory equipments. It includes the largest range of laboratory apparatus and other updated info on market, trade fairs, news, etc.
We’ve done our popular Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro Beginner Telescope one better. The Orion-designed StarBlast 6 Astro Telescope takes the same compact, wide-field, user-friendly concept and expands on it, literally. The StarBlast 6 boasts fully 73% more light-gathering area than its smaller counterpart. Yet the scope is still highly portable, weighing only 23.5 lbs., and comes with the base fully assembled in the box! The StarBlast 6’s 150mm (5.9″) f/5.0 parabolic mirror provides ample aperture to reveal the planets and deep-sky gems in wonderful detail. Its wide field of view makes finding and tracking objects easier than with longer focal-length telescopes, which makes it a superb beginner telescope — for all ages. It also would make a terrific “grab-and-go” second telescope for more experienced stargazers. Teflon bearings and adjustable altitude tension on the base ensure smooth maneuvering of the StarBlast 6. Keep the included Sirius Plossl eyepieces at the ready in the convenient three-hole eyepiece rack. Two handle cutouts in the base allow easy lifting and transporting of the telescope. Set it on the ground or even on a small table or the hood of your car, and enjoy the view! The Orion StarBlast 6 isn’t just a masterfully engineered, uncomplicated, and affordable telescope for all ages. It’s also a blast! One-year limited warranty.
My personal opinion and a recommendation. Orion Telescopes: www.telescope.com Orion SkyQuest XT4.5 Orion SkyQuest XT6 Orion SkyQuest XT8
Making a telescope is an extraordinarily rewarding experience because it crosses several different realms of experience. The first reward for you is the fun of making something. And the second reward is the sheer pleasure of using what you made to explore the universe. And you also get the added benefits of saving some money and learning about telescopes and building things.
The Simplest telescope you can make
There are a lot of different types you can make and the absolute simplest one you can make is composed of just two lenses. One large lens called an objective and a second smaller lens called an eyepiece. You hold one lens near your eye and another lens at arms length. You adjust the difference between the two by moving your arm in toward you. A point will be reached where everything comes into focus. It is as simple as that. You have a telescope. Now you can make it much better by creating a tube around it. Get two cardboard tubes with one that can slide in and out of the other. You mount one lens on the end of one tube and the other lens on the end of the other tube. Insert one tube into the other and then slide them in and out to find the focus.
You can get very inexpensive lenses from a variety of surplus and online stores and they generally will only cost a couple of dollars each. I recommend you get for your primary lens a convex lens at least 50 millimeters in diameter and a focal length of between 200 and 300 millimeters. For the secondary lens I recommend you get a convex lens that is between 10 and 25 millimeters wide with a focal length of less than 75 millimeters.
There are several things you can do to make this telescope even better. First off you could make a tube out of something more durable than cardboard tubes. Secondly, this type of telescope will invert images so everything appears upside down which is ok for viewing the sky but is very awkward for viewing things on the earth. You can solve this by using a concave lens for the eyepiece rather than a convex lens.
You can purchase the lenses individually from online surplus stores and there are several kits readily available that give you all the necessary materials to make this kind of telescope. They also come in bulk units for classroom and group use. A kit like this typically gives you all the materials needed to make ten or more telescopes.
Getting A little more involved with your telescope making
If you want a bit more of a challenge you should consider making some type of reflector telescope. Instead of a large objective lens as the light gatherer this type uses a mirror. A reflector can be very economical by giving you great price versus performance. Mirrors cost substantially less than lenses so for the same amount of money spent you can get a much larger and much more powerful telescope.
If you have a bit of woodworking or metal working skill and you want to tackle a project that is well within the means of a hobbyist you might want to consider making a Dobsonian telescope. A Dobsonian telescope uses a parabolic mirror to collect the light and most Dobsonian builders buy the mirror then build the mount for the mirror to go in. The basic concept of this type of telescope is that it is easy to build and easy to use. It is pretty much just a rotating base with a telescope tube mounted on it. And this type of instrument has gotten very popular because it really is easy to use and easy to build. And one of the biggest benefits is that because it is so inexpensive to build more money can be spent on larger mirrors which can make them quite remarkable in terms of their ability to see things in the night sky. If you are considering making this type of scope you probably should begin with one that has a mirror between six and eight inches in diameter.
Whether you build a refractor or a reflector telescope making is a very rewarding pursuit and is something you can enjoy for a lifetime. And once you start you might find that you have caught the fever and will be always looking toward building bigger and better ones. For some people making them is half the fun.
So you’ve been bitten by the astronomy bug and want to get started with your very own telescope, but you’re confused by the vast number of possible purchases? You are not alone, astronomy stores are accustomed to dealing with the confused beginner though of course not everybody has the opportunity to visit a specialist store. This article is intended to help cut through some of the confusion.
It’s important to choose a telescope that is right for you, for example there is no point having a great big Dobsonian if you rarely get the chance to assemble it in a good dark sky location.
There are several factors to be considered from practical considerations like size, weight and portability to the price you can afford and indeed where you’ll be doing the majority of your observing. Ignoring more advanced uses like astrophotography we might think along the following lines.
As a general rule, the larger the aperture the more you can expect out of your telescope. Refractors will generally outperform similar size reflectors. Refractors however are more expensive than reflectors, due to the extra high quality glass involved. They can also be impractical to handle at larger apertures where they can also reach very long tube lengths.
Large aperture reflectors can have comparatively short tubes and be very easy to handle as well as inexpensive. There is a little extra maintenance involved as you may need to clean and align the mirror from time to time, this procedure is known as collimation.
Catadioptric telescopes are a combination of refractor and reflector and are quite portable even at large apertures. A great many amateur astronomers who have access to good dark sky sites, ultimately end up with catadioptric telescopes because the offer a range of possibilities including astrophotography. The large ones, like most large aperture scopes, are not ideal in light polluted areas like the city and suburbs.
Those big Dobsonian telescopes are really just big reflectors mounted on simple turntables and their attraction is their huge light capture and simplicity of use, making them ideal for visual astronomy in a good location (again they are not so good in light polluted areas).
If you do not relish the thought of learning to find your way around the skies you could consider purchasing one of the models that come with a computerized mount. These ‘Go-To’ telescopes have made finding targets a breeze.
With those facts in mind you can now think about where you are going to do the most observing and choose a suitable beginners telescope. If you live in the city and are unlikely to get to a rural location for observing then perhaps stick with the small to medium size refractors, reflectors or catadioptrics, with or without the go-to function, your budget will probably start to dictate the choices here! If on the other hand you live in a dark sky area then my recommendation is to buy a great big Dobsonian. These offer so much viewing pleasure and are so simple to use it is difficult to fault them.
