What are the specifications of the best beginners’ telescope to buy?

Answer 1

For an astronomical telescope, the most important specification is aperture - the diameter of the main lens or mirror. Larger aperture gives you a view that is both brighter and sharper. Since many of the most interesting things to be seen are quite dim, brighter is particularly important.

The best telescope for many beginners is a 6" or 8" dobsonian - a Newtonian reflector on a simple alt-azimuth (tilt & swivel) mount. This is enough aperture to keep you busy for years, without being too big to handle. It's a totally manual telescope (though you can get electronic setting circles and computerized object finders as accessories on some), so you'll also need to invest in a star chart and learn the sky.

Another important consideration is where to buy. Discount stores and other retailers who don't specialize in astronomy often carry overpriced, poorly performing telescopes. There is also a big business in bad telescopes on eBay. You're best off going to an astronomy dealer, such as Orion - http://www.telescope.com/

Finally, if there's an astronomy club in your area, get involved. You'll learn more about telescopes from a night at a star party than a month on the internet.

Answer 2

A good telescope is as big as you can afford without sacrificing quality. Forgo the fancy electronics and just get a basic telescope. And ignore magnification. Any telescope can theoretically give nearly infinite magnification, but not infinite resolution, which is the ability to show detail. High magnification without resolution results in a blurry image. It takes a physically larger telescope to get more resolution, so don't believe it if some small telescope advertises that it will give you some high magnification, like 350X or whatever. It might do that but it will be a uselessly blurry image. You can see all the detail you would ever want at 100X or lower, including craters on the Moon, Saturn's rings, Jupiter's red spot, Ice caps on Mars, globular star clusters and so on.

By the way, nebulae and galaxies will not look anything like the pictures you often see, because they are dim objects. They are not small, you can see many of them with regular binoculars or even without any optical aid at all, but they are dim. Even in a large professional telescope they look nothing like those pictures; they appear dim almost to the point of invisibility, colorless and lacking in detail. It takes long exposure photography to get those pictures. The human eye cannot see anything like that even using the largest telescope in the world.

The source is a good first telescope for a child. And even adults like it. It was highly recommended by the editors of Sky and Telescope magazine as a "grab and go" telescope to use when you don't want to take the trouble to set up a bigger and more complicated telescope.

Answer 3

In more or less random order:

..portability (you do not want to have to carry a telescope that is too heavy until you know that you really want to)

..simple to use

..relatively wide field of view (things are easier to find)

..sturdy (a shaky telescope is very annoying -- you may have to purchase a separate tripod if you want a less expensive telescope)

..large aperture (the real role of a telescope is to gather as much light as possible so that you get to see fainter objects -- the larger the primary lens or mirror, the more light it gathers)

..good quality optics (of course, that light must be gathered by a good primary lens or mirror, otherwise the image will be awful -- at same size, a good quality mirror costs less than a good quality lens, because the light does not have to go through the mirror = only one face to polish perfectly during manufacture).

..magnification is the least important feature. The maximum useful magnification is limited by the diametre of the aperture. The maximum magnification is 20 times the aperture in cm (or 50 times in inches). So if you get a 10-cm aperture telescope (4 inches in diameter at the main lens or mirror), the maximum useful magnification is 200x. Sure, they'll sell it to you as a 600x telescope and they will include the eyepiece that gives you the 600x, but past 200x, you are only magnifying the defects in the lens.

By the way, 8 to 15 cm (3 to 6 inches) is a good size telescope for beginners; smaller than that, you would be better off getting very good binoculars, even for astronomy!

..Versatility (especially if you don't know in advance if you'll enjoy astronomy, get something that could be used for something else, just in case -- another advantage for good binoculars).

and, if you are lucky enough:
..use somebody else's telescope(s) for a while, so that you will better understand what is important for you.

Do not try to buy the very expensive, specialized, computerized, etcaeterized telescope yet. Buy something more general (and simple), and keep the big purchase for when you will know what you really like in astronomy (planets, faint nebulae, distant galaxies, pictures, spectrographs... who knows).


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I have a 10-inch Newtonian (25 cm aperture, with a primary mirror at the bottom of the tube) with an equatorial mount and a sidereal drive (once set up, the motor keeps the telescope pointing to a given star). The whole thing weighs over 25 kg (60 pounds -- mostly because of the sturdy tripod). Thousand bucks way back when.

Then I broke a rib.

I was in the middle of a project, so I purchased the lightest telescope that could still allow me to continue that project: a 3 inch refractor (8 cm aperture with a primary lens) with good quality optics, PLUS a full-aperture solar filter PLUS a very good tripod (the telescope came with a flimsy, table-top tripod); the whole thing for about 300 dollars.

The whole thing weighed a couple of kg (less than 5 pounds). It takes me a few minutes (compared to 15) to set it up and it is very simple to use. Because it has a wide field of view, I do not need a motor to keep the star within the field of view while taking notes.

The project was a success.

Recently, I was invited to join an observing meeting of amateurs from another region. Two hours away by car.

I did not feel like lugging the monster, so I took the small one. Luckily, they know me and I do not have to impress anyone with the size of my telescope.

Others had giant 22-inch telescopes (56 cm diameter -- tube length was twice my height, they needed special ladders to observe), very impressive.

Late afternoon, we set up in a clearing near the inn. Early evening, the staff (who were kind enough to have turned off all the bright lights around the inn) came along and asked: Can we see Jupiter?

From where we were, Jupiter was behind the trees. Well, I picked up my small telescope and, within minutes, we were observing Jupiter and its 4 moons (and 2 bands on the planet). This bought us enough time for another amateur to move and set up his 6-inch telescope to provide better views.

A whole evening would not have been enough to move the bigger ones.

The small 'scope saved the day.

Answer 4

look if this is going to be your first telescope...if iwere you i would buy a small refractor, they are easy to move around and will help you learn the sky more quickly because of their ease of use. then if you decide to buy another telescope later, you might want to get a 6-8 inch reflector. i like refractors because the images are as crisp as you can get with a telescope. but trust me, youll love any kind of telescope. orion telescopes.com has great deals on their refractor. the 80ed is an exceptional bargin, other companies would sell a similar scope for about 5 times the price orion sells theirs for... good luck!!!!

Answer 5

my first scope was this one:

http://www.oriontel.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=276944&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=3&iSubCat=369&iProductID=276944

and while it was a bit to put it together, its a great first scope, and about as cheap as you can get and still have a real telescope.

The problem with other scopes is the tripod. You need a really good one and that is really expensive, too expensive for a beginner IMO. with the Dobsonian mount, you avoid the problems of the tripod. Any tripod mounted scope that is decent you will pay at least $500 just for the tripod.

edit:

and I could take really good photos with it as well !!!:

http://jleslie48.com/aaph/

with only the scope and my digital camera.

Answer 6

Size does matter. But more important is quality.

Answer 7

http://asktheastronomer.blogspot.com

she is a great one to ask, she is a first telescope expert!!!