telescope question?

Question

1. hat is the best telescope that I can get for $300 to $450?

I found a telescope with 340X. what is that and is it a powerful telescope or not? please give an example of what you could with that.

Answer 1

Magnification is the telescope focal length divided by the eyepiece focal length. Beyond a point, this is not so important a number because what you view is inherently fuzzy due to turbulence in the atmosphere and all additional magnification does is spread out the fuzzy object into a bigger (and dimmer) fuzzy object.

If you want to see faint things, you need a bigger aperture. You can always buy a shorter focal length eye piece or a barlow adapter (magnification booster) if you need one.

Also consider getting a good pair of binoculars and a good tripod as your first instrument. Not only can you do some pretty fun viewing with just that (for instance you can easily see Jupiter as a disk with some cloud bands on it and see the moons changing position from hour to hour.) They are easier for a beginner to use and have function if you decide later star gazing is not for you.

Here is a nice essay about getting started in star gazing. http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html

Be sure to solicit the advice of a local astronomy club if possible for things to look at once you have your first bits of equipment. Have fun!

Answer 2

Believe it or not, power is not the most important thing about a telescope. Most objects in the sky, even deep space ones, really aren't that small, they're just dim. One of the most important features of a telescope is it's light collecting ability. The larger the primary lens or mirror of a telescope is, the more light it can collect, and the brighter the object will appear. Most astronomers use a fiarly low magnification eyepeice because high magnification often produces useless fuzzy images.

"The Best" telescope you can get for $300-$450 really depends on what you want to do with it. Telescopes are like cars, different cars and good for different things. In general though, if you buy used, which I highly recommend, you can get an 8" Schmidt Cassegrain with tracking for astrophotography. You can get a 10" Meade Starfinder on an equatorial mount with or without tracking for astrophotography, if you can find one. You can get a 10" Dobsonian or if you're really lucky and happen to find one in your area, even a 13" Coulter Dobsonian. You can also get an excellent 80mm apochromatic refractor.

If you want to actually see deep space objects like galaxies, I wouldn't get a refractor because you won't be able to afford a big enough one. I'd get some type a reflector like the ones mentioned above.

You can find good used telescopes in your price range at www.astromart.com in their classified section, or www.cloudynights.com. Sometimes eBay has good used telescopes but that's a toss up.

Answer 3

My suggestion: get "astronomical binoculars" and a nice, steady tripod for them. Perhaps you can pick them up used. These will show a lot of interesting things, and your total cost would be less than $300. That will get you started, and if you enjoy them you can think about a more elaborate telescope.

As several answers above have pointed out, a $450 telescope with 340x magnification is not a very useful instrument. Magnification that high is "empty", because everything seen at that huge magnification will be dim (except maybe the moon), perhaps too dim to see.

Answer 4

The important factor in a good telescope is not magnifying power. The important factor is light-gathering power (that is why the professional telescopes on mountain tops are huge). So you want a telescope with a large APERTURE. That is the diameter of the objective lens in a refracting telescope, or the diameter of the main mirror in a reflecting telescope.

Your eyes' aperture is the size of your pupil: about 5 millimetres, not very big at all. The much larger aperture in a telescope is focused down to fit into your pupils; that is how t wors. It has the effect of making very dim starlight visible. It can be dangerous, though; NEVER EVER look into a telescope pointing at the Sun; you can blind yourself very very fast.

Answer 5

Find Meade Telescopes on Google. They are the best buy that I have found. Buy a reflecting telescope, 5 inch at least, they are the best for the money and you can get a very nice one for the money you mentioned. 340X is good. You should be able to see the rings on Saturn with it. If it is not a reflector though you might not be able to gather enough light to see Saturn well. Also, you should be able to get a motorized equatorial mounted computer controlled system for the $400.00. Check with Meade Telescopes.

Answer 6

Before you buy anything, go look through someone elses scope.
I always thought I wanted one, but my friend brought over a nice amatuer scope (about $1500) and the only thing that looked better was the moon. We looked at Mars a couple of years ago when it was close to earth and it looked like an orange dot, just a bit bigger.
If you can't afford a 100 inch telescope, you're not going to see much.

Answer 7

I think thiw must be a powerful telescope, but there must exist ones that are much more powerful and if you combine 2 of them the result may go beyond the imagination!!! I think you are lucky you found it and I would keep them if I were you.

Answer 8

Contact your local Astronomy club !!!!
Sky & Telescope magazine [skyandtelescope.com] and maybe Astronomy magazine have lists by region & state, and country.

If you are interested, it would be best to LEARN about the sky, real science, and what telescopes can do.

A Dobsonian would be a cheap way to go. [google that]

Answer 9

If your a bit handy: also have a look at this pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_telescope_making
http://www.starastronomy.org/TelescopeMaking/Links/index.html
Even if you've two left hands, you can find much valuable information there.