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How To Buy A Telescope

Although it is possible to have many hours of pleasure observing the night sky using the naked eye or binoculars, at some point in every amateur astronomer’s career the decision is made to buy a telescope.

Deciding which telescope to buy can be daunting as there are so many models available and you also need to decide if you want a refractor or a reflector. Decide on the type of telescope that’s right for you before you reach for your credit card.

These are a few things to think about when deciding which telescope to buy:

How Portable Does Your Telescope Need To Be?

Smaller telescopes are easier to carry and move around and are better suited to being set up quickly, taken to sites away from home or better suited to people who have back problems (the last thing you want to do is put your back out, lugging heavy equipment in the dark!)

Aperture

How well a telescope performs is determined by its aperture – the diameter of the telescope’s main mirror or lens. The more light a telescope can gather, the fainter the objects you can see with it. A bigger telescope will also have greater resolution, which allows you to see finer details on planets and deep-sky objects and enables you to split double stars better.

Your Local Conditions

Neon-glow skies are part of the modern world, drowning out all but the brightest stars and planets. Telescopes see deeper into the night sky than the naked eye but they, too, are subject to the effects of light pollution. Filters are one of the most frequently purchased telescope accessories and when used with a telescope can cut the effects of light pollution, but to get the best views of the night sky, you need to travel to a dark sky site. Large telescopes can be difficult to move in such cases, so a portable telescope is the best option when traveling. Big telescopes are more suited to a backyard observatory and a permanent or semi-permanent setup.

How Much Should You Pay?

Poorly built telescopes are less common these days but expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a quality telescope. For the same amount of money, you will always be able to buy a larger reflecting telescope than a refracting one (one that uses lenses). More work is required to grind lenses than mirrors, so this is always reflected (no pun intended) in the price.

You can see hundreds of deep-sky objects, the planets and features on the Moon with a good-quality 80mm refractor or a 6-inch reflector. Larger telescopes will allow you to see deeper into the night sky. Telescopes hold their value well over time and do not depreciate in value like personal computers. A quality instrument will always command a good resale price should you ever come to sell.

The Telescope Mount

In previous years, Digital Setting Circles where sold as extras for telescopes. These allowed a telescope to be very accurately pointed at particular co-ordinates in the sky. These have now been surpassed by GoTo mounts. Such mounts include a computer which contains a database of all the objects in the sky and can point the telescope to any of those objects at the click of a couple of buttons. Getting your telescope aligned beforehand is crucial to how accurate a GoTo mount is in pointing. GoTo mounts also contain information on each object, will track the sky automatically (so the object of interest won’t drift out of the field of view) and most also contain tours that will take you on a journey to the more interesting objects in the sky.

Conclusion

Your lifestyle will dictate the best type of telescope for you. There’s no use buying an 8-inch reflector if you live in an apartment and have to haul it up to the roof to use it. A small refractor would be a better choice.

Don’t buy in a camera shop / catalogue shop. Buy from a dedicated telescope shop.

The more money you spend, the better the telescope you can buy so spend as much as you can without overspending. Check the resale value of the used telescope you’re interested in (on eBay for example) in case you want to sell it at a later date (and buy a better telescope).

At the very least, you should look at buying an 80mm refractor or a 6-inch reflector. Smaller telescopes aren’t necessarily badly made but you may find that you yearn for deeper views of the cosmos or closer views of the Moon much more quickly than you realized, if you own a small telescope.

Remember, above all, you’re buying a telescope to appreciate the wonders of the night sky, not to give you back trouble or frustration because it’s too awkward to move! Buy a telescope that you will actually use, not one you think would be great but that will never actually get used in practice.

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