![]() ![]() If you live in or near a city, you'll generally be better off with a small-to-medium-size refractor. City dwellers have no need for telescopes with very large light buckets, due to the light pollution they're dealing with. If you live in an urban area with a lot of light pollution, you won't be able to see as much as you would be able to in a more rural area. For folks wanting to move their telescopes to the backyard and other outdoor locations, buying a telescope that you can realistically lift is essential.Ĭonsider where you live and where you're going to use your telescope. Is your telescope going to be moved around, or will it live permanently in a room or protected outdoor location? Weight and portability matter when it comes to purchasing a telescope, and a telescope that's too big or heavy to carry probably won't get used much, unless you're planning to park it in a room, pointed out the window forever. Things to consider before buying a telescopeįried gave us a few rules every aspiring stargazer should consider before taking the plunge on a telescope: Longer telescopes with wider apertures will produce crisper images, but they'll be more expensive. The length of the telescope also affects your viewing experience. "You're looking through the eyepiece at this focal plane, and that's how you see the image." "You can think of an eyepiece like a little mini microscope, Fried said. The James Webb telescope's first stunning cosmic images are here A shorter focal length does the opposite - it increases the field of view, which is ideal for looking at galaxies and other large deep space objects that are dimmer and further away. A longer focal length will limit the field of view but increase the magnification, which is good for looking at planets and the moon. ![]() The focal length of the eyepiece determines the magnification that you get. Instead, it brings the light to a focal plane, which can then be looked at through a telescope's eyepiece. So, the bigger the telescope in aperture, the greater the light gathering, and that equates to being able to see fainter objects and things that are farther away as well, typically."įried noted that a telescope doesn't actually magnify. "The diameter and the size of the aperture, the opening of the telescope, is determines how much light it will gather. "What a telescope does, is it gathers light," Fried posited. We tapped Fried's 40 years of stargazing experience to learn everything you need to know before bringing home your own telescope. Fried is also a longtime member and former board member of the Custer Institute, as well as a member of the Astronomical Society of Long Island, the Amateur Observers Society of New York, the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers and the Westchester Amateur Astronomers - so he's very involved in astronomy and knows what makes a good telescope. We chatted with Bart Fried, the Executive Vice President of the Amateur Astronomers Association in New York City, and founder and past president of the Antique Telescope Society. To get some guidance on how telescopes work, what types of telescopes there are, and how to shop for one, we turned to the experts. It's easy to drop a few thousand dollars on some of the higher-tech models, but that isn't always the case. Whether you're a beginner stargazer or a seasoned astronomer, there are a lot of telescopes and telescope accessories on the market. From stars to planets to galaxies, there's a whole lot out there beyond our little floating rock - and a telescope is the best way to view the heavens. There's nothing that will give you an existential crisis (or make you appreciate your life) more than taking a gander at space. ![]()
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