Vision is your vehicle to the Stars
Vision is an acquired skill. You must learn it, you must practice, and you must keep learning new things, and practicing them, too. Buying a bigger telescope to see more is like buying a bigger kettle to be a better cook, or buying a bigger computer to be a better programmer. So does visual astronomy an experienced observer may see things with a small telescope that a beginner will miss with an instrument five times larger.
What skills may you hope to cultivate? What techniques should you practice? Not all have names, but here are a few, in what I think is order of importance; what matters most comes first.
Also if you are an old geezer with poor eyes get your Cataracts removed... This Medical Procedure when done correctly will be like having a child's eyes again. I am functionally blind at 3 feet and less but have better than 20/20 vision at infinity. After I had my lens replaced I could see the Horse Head through my LX200 10" with out filters quite distinctly, I could then plug my CCD Imager in and get the proof to the skeptics that I was observing with up around Castelgar and Nelson in British Columbia.
One other thing, do not have a Lasak Procedure done, nothing more on this one, but it will ruin your observing pleasure.
1. Patience - It can take a long time to see everything in a field, even if you know exactly what you are looking for.
2. Persistence - Eyes, telescope, and sky vary from night to night.
3. Dark adaptation - Avoid bright lights before observing: It takes your eyes hours to reach their full power of seeing faint objects.
4. Averted vision - Many observers use averted vision on faint objects, but not for faint detail in bright ones, averted vision seems to facilitate the detection of low contrasts as well as faint objects.
5. Stray light avoidance - Even when it's dark, background glow interferes with detecting faint objects. Keep it out of your telescope and out of your eyes. Try eye patches and eye cups for eyepieces.
6. Moving the telescope - The eye sometimes detects motion, or changing levels of brightness, more easily than static images. Jiggle the telescope, or move it back and forth, to make an object "pop out". Try it while using averted vision.
7. Not moving the telescope - The eye sometimes adds up photons over many seconds; if you can hold your eye still for a long time, faint things may appear. Try it with averted vision.
8. Respiratory and circulatory health - If you smoke, try taking a break before and during observing -- carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion interferes with the ability of the blood to transport oxygen.
Good Introductions To Amateur Astronomy
In the United States and Canada, there are two popular astronomy magazines: Sky and Telescope (S&T), and Astronomy.
Nightwatch by Terence Dickinson is a good introductory book on Astronomy. Great section on purchasing a telescope. Star charts are so-so.
The Backyard Astronomer's Guide by Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer.
A comprehensive introduction to astronomy and the equipment amateurs like to use. Written by and for amateur astronomers.
What Will I Be Able To See?
The best way to find out is to go observing with someone. Look for a local astronomy club (S&T lists them periodically). This is also a very good way to get a good price on a used telescope of proven quality.
In general, you will be able to see all planets except Pluto as disks. You will be able to see the bands and Red Spot on Jupiter and the rings around Saturn. You may be able to see the ice caps on Mars when in it's orbit it's closer to Earth. Venus and Mercury will show phases but not much else.
You will be able to see four of Jupiter's moons as points and Saturn's moon Titan plus up to 6 or 7 more depending on patience and apature.You will be able to see comets, double stars,and asteroids.
Do not expect your images if this is your interest, to be anywhere as nice as the ones you see from the Hubble Space Telescope unless you really want to hone this art to it's extremes. You may achieve the results that a few dedicated imagers such as Jack Newton or S. Hamilton or The Up and Comers such as Chuck Web.
As far as "deep sky" objects, you will be able to see all the Messier objects in most any modern telescope. Galaxies will tend to look like bright blobs. Look a while longer and you may find some spiral arms or dust lanes (assuming it has them). Galaxies look nothing like their pictures - you will not see the arms anywhere near as clearly. Remember, many of them are millions of Light Years away.
You will also find that the colors you see are considerably more muted than the pictures you see. This is because our retinas work by having two different types of light sensitive organs, rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to dim light, but relatively useless for color vision. Cones are the opposite. Thus when looking through a telescope you are using your rods, and you aren't seeing a lot of color.
Best Telescope To Buy?
Once more this will depend on the answers of questions you need to ask yourself. Are you going to use the telescope for just viewing? or are you going to into the field of Astrophotography? Also it will depend on how much you want to spend too. In the end, only YOU can answer this question.
No list or review is going to be truly definitive - we all have our own opinions and interests, and one person's "piece-of-junk optics" might be another person's dream telescope. This does not apply to any department store telescope, though. Really.
As the numbers of companies who now either make and/or just sell Telescopes of ALL price ranges, the list is just to much to put into this tutorial, instead, the next section will list a number of both large and small companies that market telescopes. The best idea would be to contact the companies and find out what kind of telescope they market in your price range. Then if you can, Find one of those telescopes at a Star party. |
