Choosing a Beginners Telescope

2010-02-16T01:43:00.000-08:00

Choosing a telescope may be daunting especially if telescopes and astronomy are new to you but you find yourself choosing a telescope as a gift for a family member.

With many different types to choose from which all have their various advantages and unfortunately there are lots of poor quality scopes around to confuse things. Lets cut through the confusion and down to the guts of what you need to know.

Whatever else you do the first thing to understand is the fact that all those beautiful pictures you have seen before of marvellous colourful astronomical sights are not going to be seen through your new telescope. Not unless you're buying a share in the Hubble Telescope anyway. Confusingly, those same photos are often on the boxes telescopes are packed in, hah - marketers!

You'll need to consider how the new telescope is likely to be used as well as what your budget might be. This is actually quite crucial for a few reasons:

Small telescopes that are easy to carry around and set up are likely to be used more frequently unless the user is a particularly keen budding astronomer
A large telescope allows more to be seen but the larger the scope the more to carry and assemble before use
If you are close to a city, a small refractor can often be better than a larger scope as they handle light pollution better than larger scopes
If you are well away from a city a large reflector can really perform well and the Dobsonian versions are dead easy to use
Refractors can also be used for views across land too, though you will need a correcting eyepiece for the image to show right way up

Remember that all other things being equal the aperture (its lens diameter) is the most important factor governing how much can be seen. Bigger is best as long as you can handle the scope and you are not capturing lots of light pollution near a city.

So taking the aboveinto account in choosing a beginners telescope if you are most likely to use your telescope in or near a city, I would tend to favour a refractor. Get one of at least 70mm aperture more if you can afford it.They're easy to carry around and set up anytime.

If however it is likely to be used in the countryside and by a keen budding astronomer, I'd opt for the biggest reflector I could afford and handle. They really perform well in rural dark sky locations.

Remember also those big Dobsonians are actually reflectors mounted on simple turntables - ideal for younger viewers.

Just about all but the cheapest telescopes can be 'accessorised' with motorised mounts, go-to systems and there are any number of eyepieces and light filters etc. that can be given as presents to the new astronomer too. A decent dealer will help you choose them wisely for your choice of telescope.

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