What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?

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3 years 7 months ago #953 by g4en4937
g4en4937 created the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?
I personally only had 1 telescope and that was one of those kid's one when I was a kid. It was like one of those long ones and I can see the moon fine it still looked like a dot but a bigger dot. Now a few years ahead, I used to view the night with one of the most non-space viewing thing...... My 60D + 650x lens on a tmount. It looks nice, but it is very fragile and for me it seems to be hard to enjoy it as the camera's viewfinder is in a weird location.

From some of the people I know they said for the camera zoom 400x is enough but as I live in a city 650x barely gets through the light pollution but I can still see the moon, pretty clearly. Then the vibrations ruins the experience if I zoom it even more.

I guess now its time for a real telescope and not camera lens, but I don't know what to even get.

I was looking at the Celestron Powerseeker series, but I still don't know. I heard elsewhere reflectors are good at looking at dim objects.
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3 years 7 months ago #956 by Fozia
Fozia replied the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?
Check this link out for more information: www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-information/
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3 years 7 months ago - 3 years 7 months ago #958 by Mike de Sousa
Mike de Sousa replied the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?
I have a modest reflector telescope which is great for the moon but I too am looking to improve my outlook. I found the following site very useful in providing information about the kinds of telescopes available. Although this is a commercial site, there's a great deal of valuable material once you get to viewing the detail on particular telescopes - it's clearly written by an enthusiast, and has far more detail than the usual copy and paste you'll find at most online outlets. I'm not recommending the site as a place to buy as I've never done so myself, however I found the site invaluable in gaining an understanding about the different kinds of telescope currently available :

www.astronomics.com/telescopes_c1.aspx

It seems best to consider exactly what you want the telescope for and how much is affordable. Perhaps you'll want to explore the moon and solar system, or perhaps you want to take photos of deep space objects, I'd love to also have a solar telescope one day. I think it's a question of getting the right tool for the job but others here on the forum are far more likely to know far more than I on this. Something I have to keep reminding myself about is that Galileo only ever had a 30x magnification at best to see through and he managed to achieve quite a few things with that :)

galileo.rice.edu/sci/instruments/telescope.html
Last Edit: 3 years 7 months ago by Mike de Sousa.
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3 years 7 months ago #961 by Alex W
Alex W replied the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?
The magnification (x400 or x650 as you quoted) is not what's important - the aperture (diameter of the telescope) is what makes the most difference. Larger aperture telescopes 'collect' more light and so you can see fainter objects and also have greater resolving power, so smaller features can be seen. The magnification is determined by the focal length of the telescope itself but also the focal length of the eyepiece (i.e. changing the eyepiece gives different magnifications).

For viewing the moon, as little as x20 or so will give good wide-scale views of the moon with higher magnifications useful for viewing individual features. Also, worth bearing in mind that there is a limit to the magnification a telescope can reasonably provide - a good rule of thumb is twice the aperture in millimeters (so some cheap telescopes marketed as x500!! but only having 50mm aperture are quite frankly rediculous and will be completely unusable at this magnification).

Reflectors are good in that you get a larger aperture for the same money (compared to refractors which are more expensive) however the coatings on the mirrors degrade over time - I've just had to get my reflector's mirrors recoated (took 8 years to get to this stage though!) so that's one price you pay.

A great resource for amateur astronomers is www.stargazerslounge.com an online forum - there are many threads on choosing telescopes and the community there is great.

Alternatively, if you can give me some more info - e.g. what do you want to view with the telescope? How portable does it need to be? Budget ? etc I can make some suggestions.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" - Richard Feynman
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3 years 7 months ago #984 by Paul Conway
Paul Conway replied the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?
The Dear Departed Sir Patrick Moore used to say a basic pair of Binoculars were sufficient with say a magnification of just x10 or so but
I think if you want to explore the craters a good sized telescope is required (one that tracks if possible)

Like Mike I have a reflector (5 inch) white Tasco Telescope...I purchased it after seeing it in a secondhand shop on the bus on the way to
work in my first job, passed it all week and finally got my father to take me with the car to get it, advertised at £75 if I remember right, I
offered £50 (was just about all I could afford at the time) and the seller agreed.

Had many years of fun with it from the early 80's through to the 90's but it now sits in my attic :-(
Eye pieces were small so had to squint a lot and being a 1970's one it did not have the electrical mount they have thesedays that track
objects and can even tell you what your looking at.

Good Luck hunting for the right one G4.
Perhaps a trip to a Car Boot might be worth while?
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3 years 7 months ago #989 by g4en4937
g4en4937 replied the topic: What might be a good telescope for spaceviewing?

Alex W wrote: The magnification (x400 or x650 as you quoted) is not what's important - the aperture (diameter of the telescope) is what makes the most difference. Larger aperture telescopes 'collect' more light and so you can see fainter objects and also have greater resolving power, so smaller features can be seen. The magnification is determined by the focal length of the telescope itself but also the focal length of the eyepiece (i.e. changing the eyepiece gives different magnifications).

For viewing the moon, as little as x20 or so will give good wide-scale views of the moon with higher magnifications useful for viewing individual features. Also, worth bearing in mind that there is a limit to the magnification a telescope can reasonably provide - a good rule of thumb is twice the aperture in millimeters (so some cheap telescopes marketed as x500!! but only having 50mm aperture are quite frankly rediculous and will be completely unusable at this magnification).

Reflectors are good in that you get a larger aperture for the same money (compared to refractors which are more expensive) however the coatings on the mirrors degrade over time - I've just had to get my reflector's mirrors recoated (took 8 years to get to this stage though!) so that's one price you pay.

A great resource for amateur astronomers is www.stargazerslounge.com an online forum - there are many threads on choosing telescopes and the community there is great.

Alternatively, if you can give me some more info - e.g. what do you want to view with the telescope? How portable does it need to be? Budget ? etc I can make some suggestions.


Well the lens I used was: www.amazon.com/Opteka-650-1300mm-Definit...igital/dp/B000IMRTFO

I guess portability wise is just: Can be moved by hand, don't really care if I need to disassemble as I'm already doing that.
I want to see stuff like the moon and things past that.
Cost limit: Amazon Based same price as above. Appox 200 USD