{"id":32825,"date":"2019-09-24T13:40:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T13:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yaabot.com\/?p=32825"},"modified":"2024-01-24T18:05:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T12:35:53","slug":"choosing-the-best-telescope-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entropymag.co\/choosing-the-best-telescope-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"A Guide To Choosing The Best Telescope For Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Choosing your first telescope, especially if you’re a beginner can easily become a harsh and demanding task<\/a> when confronted by a bewildering variety of choices and their unfamiliar features. From cheap department store telescopes to computerized models and specialized apochromatic refractors, what’s the ideal way to pick the best telescope for beginners, and be able to enjoy it for years without spending a fortune? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to buying an equipment like a telescope, you would want to do your research and make sure to purchase something worth putting your money in. Perhaps you want to get started with astrophotography<\/a>, and therefore need a telescope best for astrophotography specifically. Hopefully this post should ease your research on choosing the right telescope. Planned correctly, you pick a high-quality telescope that can last a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A telescope has two essential features: high-quality optics and a steady, smoothly working mount. All other factors being equal, big scopes show more and are easier to use than small ones, as we’ll see below. Still, you should not overlook portability and convenience \u2014 the best scope for you is the one you’d actually want to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Types of Telescopes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Having gained a lot of popularity in recent times, there’s an infinite variety of telescopes from the ads in the astronomical press. Yet for all their varied shapes and sizes, there are 3 different types of telescopes of note for serious beginners and intermediate astronomers: Refractors, Newtonians, and Catadioptrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

#1  Refractors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Refractors refract light through a series of glass lenses. A refractor is the stereotype of how a telescope is supposed to look \u2014 a long, gleaming tube with a large lens in front and an eyepiece at the back. The front lens (the objective) focuses light to form an image in the back. The eyepiece is a little magnifying glass with which you look at the image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These Galileo type telescopes range from department store specials up to lakhs for advanced and custom-made instruments. Refractors are good for casually viewing the moon and bright neighbour planets like Jupiter and Saturn, as well as larger deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limitation to low priced refractors is Chromatic Aberration. You can think of this simply as blurring or colour fringing of objects. This phenomenon occurs because of  different frequencies of light that don\u2019t refract exactly the same. Remember the fraction of sunlight passing through a prism forming a rainbow effect? The same happens when light refracts through lenses of a telescope. This is more pronounced with bright objects like the moon and planets, but not with dimmer stars. As prices of refractors go up, it’s primarily attributable to aperture (the diameter of primary lens) and the optics to reduce the Chromatic Aberration. You can specifically buy refractors called Apochromatics, or APOs that have effectively no chromatic aberration and are amazing for wide-field astrophotography, but again the prices for these scopes start at approximately Rs 14,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pros:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n