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A telescope, a telescope! My kingdom for a telescope!


Andy69

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There are a couple of things I’d better point out about this article.

First off, I have no affiliation with Skywatcher or any other astronomy equipment manufacturer or distributor. While I’m doing disclaimers I should probably also say I have no connection to Argos or Ford either.

Secondly, I appreciate that I have ignored a huge number of telescopes of various makes, models and technologies. Guilty as charged, but then this is not a particularly serious or comprehensive buying guide by any means.

It is difficult to believe but there are people amongst us that will tell you quite seriously that you can’t see any of the planets from earth. Spend £400 on some metal, mirrors and glass however and you can show them things that will quite legally blow their minds. OK, it isn’t as satisfying as zapping them with a cattle prod but it does come a close second.

It does seem amazing though that you can see Jupiter with your naked eye but it’s absolutely astonishing when you gaze through a half decent telescope and you can see the cloud bands and if you time it right, the great red spot along with any permutation of the four Galilean moons. If you’re really lucky you’ll notice a small black spot on the face of Jupiter and think it’s something on your lens. When it dawns on you that what you are actually seeing is the shadow of the moon Io cast on the surface of its parent planet you may blink a time or two as you feel your mind and horizons spontaneously expand. This is the reason that perfectly sane, well adjusted people choose to meet up in a field in the middle of winter with odd sized tubes and tripods. It is also the reason the number one top tip for buying a telescope is to get yourself out there with them before you spend any money.

Now you may think that spending an evening with astronomers will be a bit like meeting a bunch of Gollum’s in woolly hats, jealously guarding their precious telescopes while muttering to themselves about the duplicity of hobbits. But this couldn’t be further from the truth as astronomers love to show off their equipment and besides, no one wears woolly hats anymore. Spend some time exploring the night sky with a bunch of us and you’ll feel like you’ve been let in on a huge cosmic secret but without the rolled up trousers and special handshake. The other thing it will do of course is make you want some equipment of your own.

But what to buy? Let’s get the first big no-no out of the way. DO NOT under any circumstances think “I’ll just buy this telescope from Argos as its got a six hundred times magnification and is only £50”.

You could be forgiven for thinking more is better when it comes to magnification but there are limits. In much the same way that you can only zoom into a digital photo so far before things get blurry and pixellated, it is the same with your telescope because the optics are only capable of capturing a certain amount of detail. Now consider the quality of the lenses in a £50 telescope from Argos will be somewhere between jam jar and milk bottle, bumping up the magnification to 600x will achieve nothing but disappointment.

So you’re probably thinking OK if it’s not magnification what should I be looking for?

Good question, but the problem is buying a telescope is a bit like buying a car. There are many makes and models that are suited to a wide variety of uses with an even wider variety of prices. Therefore the precise make and model you need is very much dependent on what you want to do with it and what you can afford. With a car it’s fairly easy to narrow things down as you’ll be reasonably sure whether you need a little runabout or if you must have something scarlet that will take you everywhere in a blur of scenery. A telescope is trickier because having no experience of one you don’t really know what you want to do with it other than ‘look at planets and stuff’.

So where to start?

You could buy some binoculars to get you going and this is a very sensible idea. Binoculars are a great introduction to astronomy as they’re relatively cheap, easy to use and there are many guides to things you can see with a pair of 10x50’s. But you want a telescope don’t you. So you will ignore this advice as well as the advice to meet up with actual astronomers because who needs to hear wisdom borne from experience when you have Google and this guide.

So skipping past all talk of focal lengths and anything else a bit technical here, are some sweeping generalisations that any idiots guide would be proud of.

1-How big of a telescope should you buy?

The answer is size matters with telescopes, especially if you’re interested in seeing the fainter galaxies and nebula so as a general rule bigger is better. But the pro’s and con’s can be summed up thus.

Bigger = More expensive = Better views = Less portable.

So while a 24” Newtonian will give you stunning views of pretty much anything you point it at, fitting it into your car to take to a field will seem like an exercise from world’s strongest man because that mirror will be very, very heavy. And when I say car, I really mean truck as a 24” reflector has the approximate dimensions of a scud missile.

2-What type of telescope should you buy?

Well if we drop back into the car analogy many people buy Fords because they are relatively cheap, well made and do what most people need a car to do with little fuss. To my mind the Ford of the telescope world would be a Skywatcher Newtonian reflector. Sure there are BMW and Audi versions of these scopes and many other makes and models too, but if you don’t know precisely what you want to do with your telescope go with the Ford.

The range looks like this.

The KA would be a 4.5” tabletop telescope like the Heritage-114p Virtuoso.

The Fiesta is the 5.1” Explorer 130P.

The Focus would be a 6” telescope such as the Explorer 150P

The Mondeo could only be the 8” Explorer 200P

One of these will surely fit your budget.

3-What mount should I buy?

This is somewhat easier to answer. If you want to do astrophotography you need to buy a motorised equatorial mount and a good one at that (read expensive) nothing less than a HEQ 5 but if you’re serious about it then the NEQ6 seems to be the mount of choice.

If you just want to do visual observing then the mount doesn’t really make any difference. Dobsonians are easy to setup and use and don’t cost very much.

Equatorial mounts require a bit more setting up and if you take it out to a field you will at some point kneel in a cow pat while attempting to polar align it.

An Alt-Az mount is somewhere between the two but it’s all a personal preference really.

4-Do you need GOTO?

This subject is covered in more detail in another article but the short answer is if you are a total novice and will mostly be observing alone in your garden then I’d say it’s a definite yes. Many of the objects you’ll want to look at are very faint and easy to miss even when you’re in the right area so if you don’t want assistance from some friendly humans buy the computer.

In conclusion then, If the only thing you know about a telescope is that you really, really want one then just say no to Argos and buy one from the Ford (Skywatcher) range. Then take yourself down to an observing night with your local astronomy society and see what you really should have bought.

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Your columns are really nice to read, and are full of very great advice coupled with good old common sense.  Excellent stuff Andy, thanks.

 

James

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