Telescope Buying Guide

Mathuroindia asked:


I would like to know the components of a telescope. Like, all the parts in some detail, and types of mirror lenses. Basically I would like to know the lingo of telescopes so to say ^.^ Thanks to all that help!

water_skipper asked:


How does a telescope work different from a camera lense? I’m specifically wondering about magnification. With a camera lense, a longer lense means higher magnification so to get really high magnification it needs a really long lense. With a telescope they just change the eyepiece to get higher magnification and don’t change the length of the telescope.. How is it telescopes can change magnification like that and camera lenses can’t?

water_skipper asked:


How does a telescope work different from a camera lense? I’m specifically wondering about magnification. With a camera lense, a longer lense means higher magnification so to get really high magnification it needs a really long lense. With a telescope they just change the eyepiece to get higher magnification and don’t change the length of the telescope.. How is it telescopes can change magnification like that and camera lenses can’t? I asked this question under physics already and didn’t get any decent answers.

naruto asked:


Thanks to all of you guys who answer my first question.. I really don’t know about telescopes, this is my first one. Also the telescope has like a circle with lots of numbers and I thought they were you know to see the figure closer but I didn’t really get them closer.. They still pretty far.. So how do I see the images bigger? For example the stars.

Kees Tel asked:


Microscopes and telescopes are getting better and better.
Will there come a time that a scientist looks in his microscope and will see a scientist with a telescope starring up at him?

Dan M asked:


ground? What advantages does a small ground-based telescope have, when compared to any space telescope?

Dave asked:


I’m thinking about getting a telescope, but I’m not exactly sure how these things work. If you were to get one of the better ones for a couple hundred dollars or so, what exactly do these telescopes do? And how well can you see things in outer space with the telescopes? If you were to look at Mars with one of these telescopes, how well would you be able to see it? Whoever have one of the nice telescopes, can you tell me how it works, what you can see, and how well you can see it? thanks alot guys

Dave asked:


I’m thinking about getting a telescope, but I’m not exactly sure how these things work. If you were to get one of the better ones for a couple hundred dollars or so, what exactly do these telescopes do? And how well can you see things in outer space with the telescopes? If you were to look at Mars with one of these telescopes, how well would you be able to see it? Whoever have one of the nice telescopes, can you tell me how it works, what you can see, and how well you can see it? thanks alot guys

bbcd asked:


what is a motor drive for a telescope? what is it used for and why are most telescopes that have a motor drive recommended for astrotography?

Nazdaran asked:


Why is the Hubble Space Telescope considered to give the best images in the visible when telescopes such as the Keck 10 m telescopes have almost five times larger mirrors?.