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Buying Your First Telescope ~
When looking up at the sky, there comes a time when our thirst to see the stars in there full splendour rather then little dots becomes more than a desire. With hundreds of millions of objects in the sky to see, a telescope can really bring the universe to life. Your first experience in buying your first telecsope is likely to determine your future with seeing space. I say this as there is much hype from the cheap telescope manufacturers telling you that you will see millions of miles away. There is loads of hype and I hope this site and information here about buying your first telescope will help you have a great lifelong interest and participation with astronomy and using your first telescope.
One of the first things to remember when choosing your first time telecsope is that the pictures on the box were taken by a professional astrophotographer and nothing you will see through your telescope will resemble them. It is like buying a fast food sandwich and expecting it to look like the one in the picture on the menu. Low cost telescopes available at many department stores will have weak mounts, causing the image to be unstable. For a good quality first time telecsope expect to pay up to $200 for the least expensive.
The main items to look at when buying your first telescope are the two numbers that will tell you how well it is expected to work. For looking at buying your first telescope, a listing of 20X50 is about average. This means the magnification will equal 20 times what you see with your eyes and the 50 is the width of the length, which is what determines how much light is gathered. The more light the better the image will be visible in the dark and for astronomy, all star gazing is typically done after dark.
Do Not Be Fooled By Fancy Gadgets
The ability to input a star’s location and have the telescope automatically position itself to point in that direction may seem like a nice idea, but you will be paying for a feature for which you may have little use. Computerized systems that use global positioning systems to locate your telescope with you entering the location of stars enables them to find the one you entered. Additional costs will be expended to find the location of the stars and not something you will probably use with your first time telecsope.
Additionally, by having a computer point your telescope you will miss many views you might catch if you have to manually find the star of your choice. Many times when people are buying their first time telescope they forget that they might want to use them during the day and have made a purchase based on box information, with no idea how to calibrate the scope for its first use, or how to recalibrate it for daylight use.
Within a short time we get frustrated with our first time telescope and put it back in its box to return back to where we got it from. I tell you this as this was my experience, and an experience from many people who love to look at the splendour of the universe. This is the difference; when buying first telescope if you want your first time telescope to look nice with loads of extra’s which are useless then a standard toy store purchased one will suffice but if you want a long term telescope then consider a quality telescope for your first time telescope. It will take time to learn how to use it effectively, but when you do, your first telescope will be a gem that lasts for many years.
Posted: June 21st, 2007 under First Telescope.
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