I bought a telescope today!

On November 14 2009 21:24 Pandarus wrote:
Magnification doesn't matter. Strong point of this type of telescope is usually that it gives you a big field of view because it doesn't magnify much.

This telescope is like very cheap so it will be bad. But it was cheap.

Dark skies are mostly more important that a telescope. You can see stuff with the naked eye under dark skies you can't see with even a huge telescope.

This is a lens telescope, a refractor. So it will be good for the moon, planets and the Andromeda galaxy. These objects that are bright by themselves. This telescope will not collect much light, which is what telescopes do. So you won't be able to see faint objects.

I don't know the specs of this telescope. But if it's a 3 inch telescope then 3 times 50 is the max magnification. Usually the atmosphere is the limiting factor. If you look at Jupiter low in the horizon there will be looking through a lot of air. If the air is rising or otherwise turbulent or just very humid it will reduce seeing. You need really exceptional weather to be able to go over 250 no matter what telescope you have.

If you have dark skies and you want a good telescope that can see galaxies and nebula, buy a mirror telescope, a newtonian dobsonian, as big as you can afford and get to your observing site.

So if you have dark skies you should still be exited. If you live in a metropolitan area and this telescope had Hubble pictures on the box, you shouldn't.


If you live under really good skies and you spend 600 dollar/euro on a telescope you will be able to view thousands of objects and millions of stars, filling a lifetime. They will all look totally unimpressive. You will see faint fuzzy smudges. It's knowing what you are seeing that is impressive. You know they are galaxies millions of light years away. And you know how they look through Hubble pictures.

Astrophotography is expensive. You need a special mount that's really steady and adjusts for the rotation of the earth. Then you need an expensive telescope design as a normal design is too huge to mount or too small for galaxies. Then you need the special photography equipment. But then you can do really impressive things compared to what you can see. You can do very long exposures of galaxies and then stack the best ones on the computer. Then you can edit the pictures to bring out the detail and colour.


If you live in the middle of nowhere and you have stunningly dark skies and you are interest in buying a telescope, do it. But sadly those places are rare. You can buy an A brand telescope not much unlike the one in the OP for 200 dollar/euro. Or you can buy a cheap big bucket mirror telescope for 300 to 400 dollar/euro which will show you galaxies. Binoculars are good for astronomy too. And cheap. Lie on your back during summer and watch the milky way.