Choosing a Telescope for Beginners
Sunday, December 6th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
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 sadly there is plenty of rubbish around too. We can cut through some of the unnecessary confusion with a few basic pointers.
Whether you are buying for yourself or for someone else 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 replicated through the telescope you are buying. Not unless you are getting the Hubble Telescope. Confusingly, those pictures are often reproduced on the boxes telescopes are packed in, marketers getting their way!
The first thing to consider is how the telescope is going to be used and your budget. 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 often unless the user is a particularly keen budding astronomer
- A large telescope allows one to achieve more but the bigger it is the more hassle it will be to transport and set up
- If you are in a light polluted area, a small refractor is often the best option than a larger scope as they collect less light (with its pollution) than larger scopes
- If you are using the telescope well away from city lights a large reflector can really perform well and the Dobsonian versions are so simple to use a child can do so
- 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 of the telescope (its lens diameter) is the most important factor in what can be achieved in terms of views. The bigger the better at least as long as you can manage to lift and use the scope and you are not capturing all the light pollution near a city.
So taking the aboveinto account in choosing a beginners telescope if you are based near the city and probably not about to take your telescope to the countryside, I would choose a refractor. Try to get one of 70mm aperture minimum more if you can afford it.They’re easy to grab and set up on a whim.
If however it is likely to be used in the countryside and by a keen user, I’d go with the biggest reflector I could afford. They come into their own in good dark sky locations.
Bear in mind the big Dobsonians are really just big reflectors on simple mounts - great for the kids which is whay they are popular in schools.
Just about all but the cheapest telescopes can be ‘accessorised’ with motorised mounts, go-to systems and there are lots of different eyepieces and light filters etc. that can be purchased for the budding astronomer. A decent dealer will help you choose them wisely for your telescope choice.
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