When choosing your first telescope, there are some important considerations. These are a few basics to take into account:
Aperture,
this is
the telescope’s most important feature. Aperture size determines the amount of light
the telescope captures. Larger aperture means brighter, clearer images. But, the
larger the aperture, the larger the telescope, so it’s necessary to find a balance.
Reflector or refractor: Reflector telescopes only allow for celestial viewing, while a refractor telescope can view both land and the night sky.
Many telescopes come with more
than one eyepiece, for lower and higher magnification viewing. It should be noted
that you can have too much magnification, this means that the ‘scope can’t be properly
focused on an object. Working out which eyepieces work well with your ‘scope takes
a little practice, but once you have worked this out you find that you will only
need three or four eyepieces.
Something that is worth knowing, I found this out through a friend, the eyepieces that are provided with a telescope are generally good, but they are almost certainly not the best available, it is worth buying better eyepieces when you can, the ones that are provided with the scope will suffice. Once I'd bought some better eyepieces I definitely noticed the difference in viewing quality.
Many
telescopes include accessories such
as a tripod, carry case, and astronomy software, cutting down the initial investment.
It is worth buying some eyepieces that are a higher quality than the ones that come
with a telescope. One accessory that is very much worth considering is a Barlow
lens. This is a special eyepiece that has an open end for an eyepiece to be attached
to the Barlow lens. The front of the Barlow lens goes into the eyepiece socket on
your telescope. Barlow lenses usually have a mark on them which indicates the “power”
of the Barlow, this is generally X2 or X3. Because a Barlow lens alters the magnification
of an eyepiece, having a Barlow lens effectively doubles the number of eyepieces
you have.
It
is possible that you have seen some of the amazing images of astronomical
images on the internet. They are usually very close up and full of colour. Unfortunately, when you look through a telescope you
will not see the colours of an object. Most of the objects will appear as fuzzy
grey patches. However, this is not the case for the planets in our solar system.
Looking at a planet such as Jupiter or Saturn trough a medium sized telescope
will reveal the bands of colour in
the upper atmosphere of both planets. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter can be
seen, as can the rings around Saturn.
Many
people are discouraged because what they can actually see through a telescope
is nowhere near what they see when looking at images on the Internet.
Whichever
telescope you choose one thing is certain; you will be amazed at the wondrous
sights you can see. From the craters and other features on the moon to deep sky
objects, there is a wide range of subjects that you can observe.
Binoculars are an excellent choice to start with, the power of binoculars is measured with 2 number separated by an X i.e. 10x50. The 10 is the magnification, the 50 is the diameter of the objective lens, the lens at the front.
10x50 would be the lowest power binoculars I would recommend. The largest binoculars I own are 15x70. They are huge and quite hefty. Ideally they should be mounted on a tripod, fortunately most binoculars of this size are supplied with an adaptor for mounting them, a good photography tripod will do for this.
One
very important rule to know is that you must never look at the sun through a telescope or with
binoculars. Doing so can severely damage your eyes.There are some exceptions to this rule, The easiest and cheapest option is to buy a solar filter film kit, they can be purchased from any good telescope retailer, it is very important that the filter sheets are handled with extreme care, the slightest damage, even a tiny scratch can render the whole kit useless.
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