Comments on: What in buying a telescope makes the difference in how far you are able to see?

By: Geoff G

Geoff G — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:54:12 +0000

First of all, you don’t need a telescope to see far. Under a dark sky, you can see the Andromeda Galaxy with your naked eye, over two million light years away. Just about any amateur telescope will show you the quasar 3C273, about four billion light years away.

What makes a difference is the size of the telescope’s aperture, its primary lens or mirror. The larger the aperture, the more light it will deliver to your eye. Most astronomical objects are extremely faint compared to anything you otherwise look at, and most beginners have trouble seeing anything at all, even with a large aperture. You need all the help you can get, so I recommend buying as much aperture as you can afford aand transport. The latter is really important, since most of us live in places with severe light pollution, and usually need to travel 50 kilometres or more to get to skies dark enough to see faint objects from.

The best bang for the buck comes with Newtonian reflectors on Dobsonian mounts, such as these:

I’d recommend the 8″ or 10″ size as offering adequate light gathering in a reasonably portable package.

Don’t waste your money on dinky little refractors on shaky tripods! And buy from a telescope store, not a department store or eBay. Geoff G

By: johnandeileen2000

johnandeileen2000 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:58:48 +0000

The size of the objective lens. johnandeileen2000

By: astronomer

astronomer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:59:12 +0000

The aperture, FL of primary mirror, FL of eyepiece are all considered in how far you are able to see. But that not depends of telescope.. that depends on the glow of object and its size, In fact, andromeda can also be seen with a 5″ relfector while it is observed with any 12″ telescope,
I think, at beginning, you should not go to any 12″ telescope,
You should buy a 6″ newtonian with an equatorial mount, then as you become expert, you should buy a 12″…
If you have bought firstly 12″, its mount and optics will not make any sense to you and around 1 month will be spent in learning it…
The second thing important is you should be as expert as you can in stargazing… You should observe the sky daily. You should be so much improved that ‘you can tell the name of the star by looking just its direction from any window’ like me..
Then you can have fun in stargazing.. astronomer

By: Tom A

Tom A — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:26:32 +0000

OK, firstly your question indicates that you have no experience. It’s important to do research or you could finish up with an expensive hobby-killer.

Please don’t assume that any scope will be OK. You should find a local amateur astronomy club. They’ll be happy to show you different scopes and what you can see through them. Either that, or a specialist telescope shop. NOT a camera shop that sells telescopes, NOT the toy section of a department store.

Secondly, a telescope doesn’t literally “see further”. What it does is magnify what it sees. But as mentioned, the more important factor is how much light it collects, which means the size of it’s main lens or mirror. If it gathers more light, then objects seem brighter, whch is obviously important for very distant things, which are faint. If two telescopes have identical focal lengths and optical quality, then the one with the larger aperture will show a brighter, more detailed image.

Having said that, these are good scopes for beginners. They are NOT “beginner scopes”, though. Their quality is good and they are used by very experienced observers also.

Read this, also. Ignore that it’s for Australia, and ignore any money amounts which are in Aust $ for 2002. The principle is the same. Tom A

By: straightshooter

straightshooter — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:35:28 +0000

It’s all about the aperture, which is how wide your telescope is. The wider your telescope is, the more light gathering capability it has. The lens magnification is the next most important item, but if you don’t have a large aperture on your telescope, a larger magnification won’t help much because the image will be blurry. I would buy a large aperture Newtonian telescope, which can be fairly expensive, but it’ll be worth it. straightshooter

By: purplelephants07

purplelephants07 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:42:52 +0000

I would guess the magnification. Ask someone at the store for help. Good luck!! I love space!! purplelephants07