Is this telescope good for a beginner?

Question

I have been looking on Amazon for a telescope and I found this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celestron-93604-PowerSeeker-60-Telescope/dp/B0002CTZAC/sr=1-1/qid=1168532554/ref=sr_1_1/026-5108930-8127640?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

It's the first one i'll ever buy, is it ok for a beginner?

If not, then what would YOU reccomend? Or what should I be looking for, I see specs like 288x magnification. Barlow lens 2.3x, finderscope blablablabla but it's all jargon to me.

Answer 1

It is an acceptable beginner's telescope.

Good beginner's features:
light, portable, easy to set up, operation is straightforward: point and look, nothing complicated (like motors and gears and computers...).

less interesting features (but, changing them would change the price):
small aperture (the diameter of the main lens is what determines how much light goes in. At 60 mm, you will not see very faint objects. Also, the resolution (the "crispness" of the image) will not be excellent. This means that even if you increase magnification with special eyepieces, you are simply making a blurry image bigger, not clearer.
Usually shaky tripod (wind, the slightest touch... will make the image wiggle).

However, it is certainly a good starting scope as it is not too expensive and will allow you to learn what is important, without mortgaging you for life.

Aperture: the diameter of the main lens (or mirror in refracting telescopes). Determines how much light gets in. Also determines how clear the image will appear.

Magnification: How much "bigger" the image will look to your eye. However, it will not make the image clearer. The maximum magnification in practice is less than twice the aperture in mm. For a 60mm aperture, a magnification of 100x is probably above the practical limit. Higher than that, you do not gain details and you lose contrast and brilliance (the light is spread out over too much of your retina).

eyepieces: the telescope comes with interchangeable eyepieces. That is how you control the magnification. Magnification is (roughly) focal length of main lens divided by focal length of the eyepiece.

Barlow: a lens that is added to an eyepiece. It has the overall effect of shortening the effective focal length (therefore, increasing magnification). So, if you have a 2x Barlow into which you insert a 20 mm eyepiece, it is like having a 10 mm eyepiece.

Finderscope: the little scope attached to the bigger one, to help you point the telescope in the right direction. It usually has a larger field of view, allowing you to move the telescope towards your target. The main telescope usually has a much smaller field of view so that if you are not pointing at your target, you do not know which way to move in order to find it. A good finderscope lets you find objects faster.

Answer 2

Being in the US, I'm not familiar with what's available in the UK, so I can't advise you on specifics. Here in the States the best provider of beginner-level telescopes is Orion Telescope and Binoculars http://www.telescope.com/ (not to be confused with Orion Optics). Their low-end scopes are consistently rated better than similar ones from Meade and Celestron.

The most important specification for a telescope is the aperture, the diameter of the main lens or mirror. A bigger lens will show you an image that is both brighter and clearer. This telescope has an aperture of 60mm, which is about as small as you'd want to go for an astronomical telescope. Its price appears to be in line with that, though again, not knowing the market, I can't say if there's better available for the price. But if you can get a bigger aperture, go for it.

The different focal length eyeoieces will give you different magnifications. The Barlow is a lens used with an eyepiece to multiply the magnification, in this case by 3x. The maximum usable magnification from a telescope is about 2x the aperture in mm, so about 120x for this telescope. The 525x they're promising you is useless - the image will be too dim and grainy to make anything of, and the mount will be too shaky to track anything at that power (keep in mind that the sky moves).

Throw away that 4mm eyepiece and 3x Barlow (only included to give you that useless 525x) and you have a useful little scope. Lots of amateur astronomers start with something like this. There are quite a number of things you can see with it, if you know where to look. A book such as "Turn Left at Orion" will give you some things to look at and tell you how to find them in the sky - highly recommended as your first accessory.

Answer 3

I think you might be disappointed by it. I suggest something more like the one in the source. It has a bigger objective (113mm instead of 60mm) and does not promise magnification higher than it can deliver.

What to look for is: largest diameter objective (main lens or mirror) you can afford, sturdy mount that is easy to point but will not shake, and a good finder. Pay no attention to magnification AT ALL. Magnification is controlled primarily by the eyepiece, but the amount of detail in the image is totally controlled by the diameter of the objective. If you try to put a high magnification eyepiece on a small telescope, you just get a dim, blurry and shaky image; a fuzzy blob that you cannot even keep in the field of view. Much better to have a bright, clear, smaller image that is easy to keep in the field of view. If you want more magnification later you can always get another eyepiece, or a barlow lens, which is used in combination with any eyepiece to boost magnification, usually by double or triple.

Answer 4

I had one like that as a beginner, and now I wish I had bought something else, for the following reasons:

1. The mount is alt-az (altitude-azimuth), which is easy to manufacture but hard to use. You will be constantly adjusting your telescope down-a-little, left-a-little, down-a-little, left-a-little to keep your object in the field of view as the earth rotates. A better choice is an equatorial mounting, which you only have to adjust left, left, left as the earth rotates. It sounds like a silly difference, but in actual use, it's a big deal. If you lose your object, you KNOW it's gotta be either left or right of your current pointing, so it's easy to re-acquire. With an alt-az, your lost object could be anywhere.

2. Forget about 288x magnification. Theoretically, you can get any magnification you want from any telescope just by going to a shorter length eyepiece. What you will find is that going to that high mag will turn your small bright fuzzy blob into a large dim fuzzy blob. In order to make that blob less fuzzy, you need APERTURE, which is the diameter of the objective lens or mirror.

As a rule of thumb, you won't want to drive any telescope to more than 50x per inch of aperture, which in this case means about 120 power.

I would recommend spending just a bit more, and getting a small Newtonian reflector (about 4" aperture or so) with an equatorial mount. You'll actually use it much more than the 60mm refractor.

Answer 5

Hi there, i checked out a number of sights for you, and they are quite pricey, finally i went on yahoo shopping and found a Tasco 200x 50mm Refractor telescope for beginners, the price rage of a grand total of$39.00.
I hope this helps you out.

Answer 6

it's not a bad choice, but if you are into stargazing, I would recommend that you find a scope that is geared more for that...for the same price you can find something a bit more specific to stargazing, if that is what you want.

Answer 7

Buy it but learn its use.

Answer 8

yep

Answer 9

get adviced the place where you buy it