Beginning Astronomy
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The Universe
Thinking about Astronomy? Great!
Astronomy is one of the very first sciences that humanity began to observe. Many monuments were built in ancient times for the sole purpose of studying the heavens by many different cultures, Egypt, Greece, Babylonia, India, and the increasingly popular Mayans just to name a few.
Unfortunately, with modern technology we are no longer outside nearly as often as we used to be, and when we are how often do we just take 10 minutes to stop and look up? How many people do you know that actually own a telescope? How often do you hear in public anybody speaking about celestial events except the rare _____?
Combined with the fact that modern lighting is spreading more and more around the world and is hiding a vast majority of the stars that normally would be easy to spot, It would be understandable for somebody to get caught up in the daily grind and not pay any attention to the most important thing visible to us on a daily basis.
Buying the first telescope
Have you been thinking about taking that first step and buying a telescope but have zero idea what to do? As somebody that just recently bought my first telescope, let me try to give you some pointers that you might want to know before you spend too much money on a complicated telescope that you don't even know how to use. I recently bought my first telescope, I bought cheap but not too cheap that Its not worth the time.
What you WANT and what you NEED in Your Telescope
Sure, we all want the biggest "lightbucket" in town, However you don't want to spend a lot of money on a powerful telescope only to realize that the setup time and the weight and size is too much and when you finally do look through the first time, you still will not see anything that is vastly different from a cheap model that I mentioned before. Remember this, you do not want equipment that is above your skill level, that hurts you financially its just a hobby, and that requires long set up times.
What you want in a great first telescope is portability, it's almost more important than the telescope itself. You will use a telescope that you can just pickup and take in the car or in the yard with little setup time much more than you will use a 40 lb Dobsonian that you have to setup in pieces and takes longer to begin viewing.
You also must make a decision, what is your plans with this telescope? Are you going to be using it only at night for sky viewing, or do you wish to view the landscape also? Know that what you decide now will effect your quality of viewing, if you intend to be a stargazer you want reflector telescopes, they are sky only and cannot view landscape, they also produce a higher quality image. However if you wish to view both the landscape and the sky, the refractor is the way to go, but at the cost of losing nighttime star observing image quality.
This video below will explain this further in better detail.
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Orion Guide To Choosing The First Telescope
Orion Telescope review
I spent $100 on a Orion GoScope 80mm TableTop Refractor, and I purchased it here http://www.telescope.com/control/telescopes/refractor-telescopes/orion-goscope-80mm-tabletop-refractor-telescope . A quick review of the website itself, Fast/smooth transaction,good prices, very fast shipping I had it 3 days later after purchase, and every single telescope has a 30 day money back policy if you have any bad feelings about your telescope, Highly recommended.
Orion Telescope Website
- The first Step Towards Purchasing Your Telescope
What I did is study the telescope they have for sale, they can teach you all the mechanics of the telescopes, which you need to learn anyways. So check it out!
What Telescope do you recommend?
What is YOUR favorite telescope type?
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mabmiles Level 1 Commenter 10 months ago
l Love this hub! It is really fun to get involved with that activity.