How far can a 675x Telescope reach?

Question

'cause I'm planning to buy one

Answer 1

In short, read this. Ignore that it's from Australia, and ignore the money amounts, which are for Aust $ in 2002. The principle is the same.

http://astronomy.concreteairship.com/scope.htm

Answer 2

If the telescope says it's 675x don't buy it. It's a piece of junk.

Rule #1 of buying a telescope. NEVER buy a telescope that advertises it's power.

Power is a misleading selling point. Power equates to magnification, but while this is the goal of a microscope, it should NOT be the goal of a telescope, because things in space are usually fairly large from Earth and don't require magnification, they're just dim. What you want to look for is aperture. The more aperture a telescope has, the more you will be able to see.

In fact if you try to use high magnification on most things you will be able to see, you will just see a fuzzy blur.

I recommend you go to http://www.oriontelescopes.com and look at their 8" dobsonians.

Power though, is actually

Answer 3

That will be about the worst buying decision you'll have ever made. NEVER, ever buy a Telescope advertised by it's magnifying power !!!
And stay away from places like ebay, amazon, discount houses and Department stores. The vast majority of scopes sold there are junk, and it takes a lot of experience to pick out the few good scopes from among all that junk.
Buy your Telescope from a reputable Dealer or manufacturer, they stand behind their products 100%, even long after the sale.
And, BTW, the magnification has nothing to do with how far you can see with a Telescope and the 675X is pure hype and totally unusable, even if you could magnify that much.

Adolph

Answer 4

Excuse my yelling, but

DON'T BUY THAT TELESCOPE!!!!!

Magnification is NOT that important for a telescope! By FAR the most important thing for a telescope is the aperature: how large is the lens in front (or mirror in back, depending on the telescope type)? Most astronomical objects are large, but dim. In other words, you want to get as much light into the eyepiece as possible. This is done by large aperature.

Next, even for very good amateur telescopes, it is very rare to go above about 350x magnification. Why? Because turbulence in the atmosphere makes it impossible to get a good image at higher powers (except for very, very rare events). So you will NEVER be able to use that 675x magnification in astronomy!

Advice: DON'T BUY A DEPARTMENT STORE TELESCOPE!

The telescopes at department stores tend to have cheap optics and unsteady mounts. If you are limited by your budget, get a good pair of binoculars instead of that telescope. They will show a large number of deep sky objects. If you decide you like the hobby, you can then get a good amateur telescope and lenses (expect to pay as much for eyepieces as for the scope itself). A 6" or 8" dobsonian is a good first scope.

Answer 5

If you're asking this question, you obviously haven't done your homework. Any telescope that advertises itself by its magnification is likely to be junk, and a waste of money. I have a superb telescope which cost me over $4,000, and I've never been able to use anything close to 675x on it.

Pay attention to the advice others have given you here. Buy from a legitimate telescope dealer, either locally (Yellow Pages) or online (Orion, Astronomics, High Point, etc.), and not a department or discount store, or eBay, Amazon, etc.

Get youself a nice Dobsonian reflector, 6" aperture or more, like these:
http://www.telescope.com/control/category/~category_id=dobsonians/~pcategory=telescopes/~VIEW_INDEX=0/~VIEW_SIZE=1000000
http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/product.php?class1=1&class2=106

Answer 6

Sounds like you are getting yourself suckered.

Magnification is nothing. Aperture is almost everything. The people who sell scopes by magnification sell pure junk.

What you want to know are

1) Aperture. Bigger is better. It's heavier, too. And more expensive. :-)

2) Focal length. Depends on what you want... high magnification or bright wide field images. You can't have both.

3) Optical quality, e.g. mirror waveform error (one quarter lambda is minimum, one sixth is better, you won't be able to afford much better than that, anyway).

4) High quality eye pieces. You won't get those with a scope that "magnifies" 675 times. That high a magnification means they are basically selling a glass marble for an eyepiece. The resulting image quality will be about as good as what you can expect from looking inside a fish bowl. Less, actually.

Good luck and enjoy your crap scope.

Answer 7

No telescope can be any good at such a ridiculous magnification. 150x is tops for clear images, after that, you're magnifying defects in the optics. I try to stay below 100x. Aperture (light-gathering), is much more useful.

Answer 8

Please visit the following site :

http://www.opticsplanet.net/how-to-buy-a-telescope.html

It gives you all the info you need.

It says that a lot of astronomy telescopes do not need a magnification of more than 350x. In fact , going up in magnification may actually make the image worse !

Answer 9

To find out how far it can display from the distance that you are to someplace else in space, you might have to do a online search calculations. This is the first sign!

Answer 10

It will reach from the eye piece to the other end.