What would be the BEST telescope to buy???

Question

I would love to buy a telescope. What do i look for? Whats the best one and how far can you see with them?

I know the larger the telescope the better, but what about
a) Diameter of the lens?
b)Focal length?

If i buy one that is ''top of the range'' What will i be able to see with it???

Awe thank you ALL so much. That does make sense to me, and narrows down the do's and dont's. I do intend on spending a lot, so thanks again for the tips!!!

Answer 1

There is no one best telescope, because everyone has different needs and capabilities. The best telescope for one person might be too big or too complicated, or not big enough, for someone else.

The most important specification is aperture: the diameter of the main lens or mirror. A larger aperture gives a view that is both brighter and sharper. But bigger is better only up to the point where the telescope becomes too big to handle easily. A small telescope that gets used every clear night will show you a lot more than a 24" monster that gets set up twice a year.

A stable mount with smooth is essential. Many cheap telescope are virtually useless because they have scrimped on the mount.

Focal length has some bearing on what you can use a telescope for, but is relatively unimportant for most applications. A short focal length is usually more compact, and better for wide-field views, but a long focal length will be more forgiving of inexpensive eyepieces.

The generic recommendation for a first telescope is an 8" dobsonian. This is a simple manually operated telescope that will give you the most aperture for your money. A telescope like this requires a commitment on the user's part to learn the sky and learn how to locate things. If that seems too hard, there are digital object finders that will guide you to targets. The Orion Intelliscope line has a low-priced object locator. There are fully automated "go to" telescopes, but with those you will pay a lot more, or have to settle for a smaller and less capable telescope.

There are a variety of telescope FAQs on the web to help you educate yourself, but there is no replacement for actually using a telescope to figure out what will work for you. If you're in the US, check skyandtelescope.com for the nearest astronomy club, and make your way to some star parties.

When you do buy a telescope, buy from a real astronomical telescope store, not Walmart, Big5, or the local camera store.

Answer 2

"The Best telescope" depends on what you want to do with it. You sound like you want a very powerful telescope though, so you will want one with at least 8" of aperture.

Aperture is the diameter of the telescope's lens or mirror. Most larger telescopes use mirrors. The more aperture a telescope has, the more light it can collect. So the more aperture the telescope has, the more you can see.

The focal length of the telescope is the distance the light has to travel from the primary mirror or lens, to where it focuses to a point. This affects magnification.

Magnification = (telescope focal length)/(eyepiece focal length)

So if you had a 25mm eyepiece, in a telescope with a focal length of 1000mm, you will get a magnification of 40x. But if you used that same eyepiece in a 600mm telescope, you'd get a magnification of 24x.

But wait! Most viewing is done using low magnification! High magnification is usually only used for planets and binary stars and it can be hard to use.

Your telescope has a limit to how much it can resolve so just because you can magnify something 1000x in your telescope, it doesn't mean you'll get a clear image. The more aperture your telescope has, generally, the more it will be able to resolve. The maximum theoretical magnification you can use in your telescope is 50 multiplied by the aperture in inches. In reality, you will probably never be able to use this magnification because the Earth's atmosphere distorts things.

So what can you see in which telescope? Assuming you use the right eyepieces and have fairly dark skies.

4.5" of aperture: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are small but you can clearly see Saturn's rings, the moons around Jupiter and some hints of cloud bands, and some detail on Mars, maybe the icecap. The Orion nebula is a small fuzzy patch and the ring nebula is a faint cheerio looking thing that you can see through the darkness if you don't look directly at it. The andromeda galaxy is a bright but blurry oval and you can make out a few more tiny fuzzballs that are galaxies. You can see many star clusters.

8" of aperture: The planets are larger and you can make out more detail. Maybe you can even see the red spot on Jupiter when the conditions are just right. The Orion nebula is much brighter and you can see some structure to it and the ring nebula is brigher and you can look directly at it. You can see a few other nebula as well. The andromeda galaxy is a brighter fuzzy oval and you can see some detail in other bright galaxies. You can also see a few more faint galaxies you couldn't with the 4.5" If you had a camera you could get very impressive photos. You can see more star clusters.

10" of aperture: You can see cloud bands on Saturn, and Jupiter and on good nights you can see more intricate cloud details. The detail on Mars is very apparent and the planets are much larger than they were in the other telescopes. Uranus and Neptune look like small blue balls and there is no question as to whether they are planets or stars. The Orion nebula is a bright cloud of gas with notable structure and the ring nebula is a bright glow. You can see many fainter nebula as well. Under dark skies you can make out detail in a number of galaxies and you can see many more of the fainter ones. You are now in the realm of serious deep space viewers, and you can see mainy faint comets that typically aren't visible.

Greater than 10":
Well things just get better!

Answer 3

Well, you could easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on a top-of-the-line telescope. The high end telescopes are generally made for photography, not necessarily for visual use (they can be used either way but are generally optimized for imaging).

The diameter of the lens or mirror determines, to some extent, the level of detail you can make out and the faintness of the objects you can see. Good refractors (use just lenses) are generally much more expensive per inch of aperture than similar quality reflectors (use just mirrors). The most common types of telescopes for people starting out are either reflectors, in the form of "Dobsonians" or "catadioptric", meaning they use mirrors AND a lens. The most common of these types are Schmidt-Cassegrains, Schmidt-Newtonians, and Schmidt-Maksutovs.

The focal length of the telescope, in combination with the focal length of the eyepiece being used, determines the magnification.

So, the real question is: what kind of budget do you have? That will really help narrow down the potential suggestions.

I'd agree with "zahbudar" (that wasn't me who gave you a thumbs down, by the way) that you want to get the widest lens or mirror you can afford (and handle) and that Takahashi's are great scopes.... but I disagree that you want to go for the most focal length possible. That will mean the magnification of the scope is very high. While that sounds great, it's often problematic and not useful at all. I'd recommend a medium focal length scope, somewhere in the range of 800mm to 1200mm.

Answer 4

"Whats the best one and how far can you see with them?"

The best telescope for you is the one you will use most often. This means that it should have a large enough aperture (diameter of lens or mirror) that you will get satisfying views, yet not so large that you will hesitate to set it up, or to transport it to a dark sky site. As someone else here said, you can see 2 million light years with your naked eye, so any telescope will show you things that are very far away. I generally find that an aperture of 6" or more is necessary to see objects well, and sustain your interest, and it should be mounted in a simple solid way so that it's easy to use; this usually means what's called a Dobsonian mount.

A good general guide is the book Star Ware by Phil Harrington. Here are a couple of good online articles that discuss the pros and cons of different types, and make specific recommendations:
http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html
http://observers.org/beginner/j.r.f.beginner.html

My personal recommendation for most beginners would be a Dobsonian reflector of 8" or 10" aperture, such as these:
http://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=9
http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/product.php?class1=1&class2=106

You won't find these in discount stores or eBay; but you shouldn't buy a telescope there anyway. Look in the Yellow Pages under "Telescopes" or buy online from Orion, Astronomics, High Point, OPT, etc.

Answer 5

You might not have this kind of money, but go to Takahashi Telescopes.

They have a really cool website and you can see some of the coolest telescopes made (not the biggest, or the best, but probably the best that I might ever hope or dream of owning).

They also have pics of things you can see with their telescopes. Very neat site. Do a search on the Internet and you will find it. I am not at home at this moment and do not have the exact site name spelling...

In general, what you want in a telescope is the largest lense or mirror and focal length you can possibly afford, and deal with. the "deal with" part has to do with size and weight when it comes to portability...the real big ones need huge tripod mounts with balance weights and motors. Then, when we are
agreed about that point, you can move over into super neat coatings and color correction in the glass of the lenses. That series of features make the glass optics cost two, to three, to four times as much. In that kind of equipment, good telescopes start around $ 10,000 and there is no upper limit in cost, because you can always dream up something even better. Then maybe you will need a special little domed building to place the telescope inside of, and a private mountain top property of your own for viewing the night skies..

For a good primer on telescopes see Findascope dot com.

Answer 6

For a good quality telescope, go for mirror, not lens. Refractor have chromatic aberrations that mirror do not have.
The focal length is not really critical as it controls the magnification (which is secondary and highly dependent on the resolving power, which is a function of the diameter of the primary and the optics quality) which is still tweaked by the objective which are typically replaceable.
Some commercial telescopes will be made with a shorter focal length for the sake of compactness.

You will have to define what you mean by your "top of the range". The Hubble Space Telescope is pretty much "top of the line", but I doubt you could afford it, unless your name is Bill Gates.

Answer 7

this really all depends on what u want to use it for..
the bigger the object lens the more light gathering power.
and the more faint objects u will see.
but before u start to spend silly money on a large telescope try a good pair of binoculars first 10x50 or 20x100 these will give u a good wide field of view also u will be able to see the moons around jupiter and and thousands more stars, our own moon will look pretty neat to.
once ur heart is really set on the subject then consider a scope dont go for anything less than 100mm front object lens and forget about high magnification far better with wide field of view with reasonable magnifcation I use a meade lx200 10" mirror..mostly I use 12mm to 23mm eyepiece..was able to see the polar cap on mars with these.
but PLEASE a word of WARNING NEVER EVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE.YOU WILL BE BLINDED ALMOST INSTANTLY...hope this helps a little..

Answer 8

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Answer 9

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Answer 10

I will only add. Any scope larger than 8 inches has to be considered as untransportable, they are heavy. An 8 inch reflector with go-to capability would be ideal.
Have a look for a local astronomical group, and speak to them.