what sort of telescope would i need to focus on galaxys?????

Answer 1

You need the biggest mirror you can afford. Galaxies are very dim, and you need to gather a lot of light.

The best telescope for most people to look at galaxies with is called a Dobsonian. It's uses a very inexpensive mounting and puts most of the money into a big mirror. Here are some examples.

http://www.dobsonian.com/

Don't expect the galaxies to look like the pictures. The pictures accumulate light over a long time. Your eye can't do that. The galaxies will look like fuzzy patches of light, with a little detail. Astronomers don't look through telescopes much any more, they just take pictures.

Answer 2

Most galaxies are generally dim, not actually small, as people think. A telescope makes things visible by collecting light to make things brighter, and then magnifying it a little.

The light collecting ability of a telescope depends on it's aperture. Aperture is the diameter of a telescope's lens if it's a refractor or mirror if it's a reflector. The more aperture, the more light the telescope can collect.

Most people who dedicate their observing to galaxies use telescope of at least 10" in aperture.

You can see some galaxies with telescopes as small as 4.5" of aperture though.

You can get a 10" Dobsonian m ade by Zhumell for about $499 right now I think. This is an incredibly good deal!

Answer 3

But seriously now...while a few galaxies can be seen with any telescope or even binoculars, to do some serious amatuer observing of galaxies, you're going to want a fairly substantial telescope. We're talking 8" diameter or bigger for any kind of reflector and a fairly serious outlay of some cash...from several hundred dollars for a dobsonian mount to a few thousand dollars for a good quality schmidt cassegrain.

The problem is that galaxies, in general, are a more challenging deep sky object than most others. It is difficult to bring out detail with a telescope smaller than 6 inches. Most appear as the ubiquitous fuzzy blob of light.

FYI, anytime anyone mentions "magnification" when selling or recommending a telescope, run away...magnification does mean squat. It's merely a function of the eyepiece used, and ANY telescope can give you 600 magnification!!! wow...hohum The real power of any telescope is how much light it can gather, and that's a direct function of the primary mirror's diameter (or the objective in a refractor).

Answer 4

Any telescope, even regular binoculars, can focus on galaxies. Contrary to popular belief, many galaxies are not small and you do not need high magnification to see them. For example, the famous Andromeda galaxy is much larger than the moon, as shown in the composite picture in the source. But they are extremely dim and you need a very dark sky, like you get in the country far from all artificial light sources where the stars look so numerous and bright that you just can't believe it and the Milky Way is a bright band of light crossing the whole sky. That picture in the source is two different images digitally combined, the Moon is never seen in the same part of the sky as the galaxy, and even if it was, you could not see the galaxy in the glare of the much brighter Moon. In fact, you cannot see the galaxy with your eye like it appears in that picture with ANY telescope, no matter how big. The only way galaxies can be seen like that is with long exposure photography which makes them look MUCH brighter than they really are. People who have never looked through a telescope at a galaxy are always EXTREMELY disappointed that they look like colorless, mostly featureless, dim fuzzy patches of light, nothing like the photographs at all. Andromeda in particular looks more like the head of a comet with no tail than it does a galaxy. But everyone is always impressed with the Moon and Saturn, both of which look much better in person, with your own eye looking through the telescope, while galaxies look MUCH better in pictures.

Answer 5

I agree with AZ Imagined but I'd just make the point that using a telescope takes practice - you have to learn how to observe. Don't stop looking at something just because it's a faint fuzzy - the longer you look the more you'll see. Making sketches of your observations is a great way to train your eye to see the faint details.

Answer 6

I tried to do that with my Granddaughter but was very disappointed as they live in a large city and the street lights blind u so u cant see much.

Answer 7

You need optical telescope with significant magnification to see the nearby galaxies (andromeda etc.)

Visit http://www.astronomy.com

Answer 8

Even binoculars can do the trick.