What is absolutely the best telescope for viewing the moon?

Question

Refractor, reflector, dobsonion etc?? Best size? Best magnification? What gives absolutely the best close ups? If money were no object? The telescope should be readily available to the amateur astronomer.

Answer 1

The Moon is an easy target and excellent images can be seen using a variety of telescopes. "The Best" telescope for lunar observing depends on if you prefer to see large portions of the moon at once, or if you want to zoom in as close as possible on the lunar features.

The larger the telescope, the more light it collects and the moon is bright enough, or even too bright, even in small telescopes. But the advantage of using a large telescope on the moon is that it will allow you to obtain higher magnifications, as long as you use a lunar filter or off axis aperture stop to limit the light. You will quickly be limited in the magnification you can obtain, by atmospheric turbulance though.

All being said, I think an apochromatic refractor such as one made by Takahashi, TeleVue, or Astro-Physics would offer very crisp images for lunar viewing.

Answer 2

Viewing The Moon

Answer 3

Stop shouting please. Distance is not as important as the size of the objects. The galaxies in Hubble images may be billions of light years away, but those galaxies are hundreds of thousands of light years across. If you do the basic trigonometry you find that even a galaxy on the edge of the visible universe appears larger than a lunar rover 250,000 miles away. It's the same as being able to see a house twenty miles away with binoculars, but not the ant crawling up the wall of the house two blocks away.

Answer 4

Any telescope is good to view the moon, but you need a lens that is coated as to keep the brightness of the moon from hurting your eyes, during magnification the moon is extremely bright , if you want to follow the orbit of the moon, you will have to get the magellan gps , that follows the moon in orbit as you watch it.

Answer 5

If you're into absolutes, how about a nice 12" apochromatic refractor? You'll have to special-order it, but you'll need the time to build the observatory anyhow.

Answer 6

you will soon grow tired at looking at the moon(took me nine months though) and will want to observe other planetary and galactic events. i would suggest look up in your area a astronomy
club, there you can look at and use a lot of different telescopes
and be able to find one that meets your needs, but let me warn you.... once you are hooked at looking at the stars..... you will never be the same again, you will feel small, very small.

Answer 7

So make your own. There are plenty of examples on the web

Answer 8

Try http://celestron.com