Do a Bit Of Research Before Buying Your First Telescope
March 22, 2008
Thinking About Astronomy:
When you start having interest in the field of astronomy the first that comes to your mind is to buy yourself a telescope. The thing is that there are many a companies that are out there in the market, the thought of buying a telescope is very exciting and the experience that you get when you go out to buy one could be either disappointing of exciting. What type of experience you get all depends upon what type of research work you have done before going out and buying this equipment which will further enhance you love for this field of astronomy. There are different types, different models some cheap while some that could dent your pocket already confused, well don’t get confused.
Things To Remember:
The first thing that you should remember when you choose your first telescope is that the pictures that you have seen that were perhaps taken by a professional astrophotography will be nothing compared to the one which resemble when you watch from your telescope. It’s something like buying a low cost sandwich and expecting it to turn out the one bought from a five star restaurant. Telescopes, which are available at low cost, can be bought from any departmental stores but then these telescopes have a weak mount, which causes the image to be unstable. For a good quality telescope you need to pay at the least $200. This is the least expensive telescope for good quality viewing.
The main thing that you should remember when you buy yourself a telescope is that there are two numbers that will tell you how much work you can expect from the telescope. For a good first telescope a listing of 20X50 is about the average. Which means that the magnification will be equal to 20 times the image or object you see with your eyes. And the number 50 is the width of the length, which will determine how much light is gathered. The more the light the better will be your image quality which will be visible in the dark and for astronomy star gazing is done only at night times.
You may be carried away by the ability of the telescopes to automatically position itself to point in the direction of the star and this ability to input a star’s location will make you feel happy but then you will be paying for some features which has little or no use at all. Computerized systems that use global positioning system to locate your telescope when you enter the location of stars enable them to find the one that you entered. Additional costs will be expended to find the location of the stars and not something you will probably use with your first telescope.
By buying yourself a computerized telescope you may miss out many views that you would have seen if you had a manually operated telescope to find the star of your choice. People many a times buy a telescope thinking that they shall use the telescope only at night and they forget that they might want to use the telescope sometimes even during the day time and the purchase of the telescope they made may be based on the information given in the telescope box and they practically have no idea how to calibrate the scope for its first use or how to recalibrate it for daylight use.
It usually doesn’t take much time for the first timers to realize the folly that they did when they bought the telescope and the frustrations that they vent upon the telescope before thinking of packing their first telescope and sending it back to the store. A quality telescope cannot be taken from the box, pointed at the sky and bring everything into sharp view. It pays to read the directions completely before attempting to use the first telescope the first time.
Summary:
As the saying goes ‘Hurry bury spoils the curry’ the same thing stands true when you go out and buy yourself the first telescope. So the best thing is that you do a little study of the telescope that you want to buy and find out all about its features and its usefulness before buying one that looks like an attractive piece or that which the shopkeeper convinces you with his sweet and sugary talk.
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