In Part 4 we covered your telescope’s mount and how to choose one. In this part we will discuss all of those things that come with, or are added to your telescope to make it function, make it function better, or just do something nifty!
The sign of a lower quality telescope: If you buy […]
We’re going on vacation, so there won’t be any updates next week. So we’ll take this opportunity to let those who are also camping (hint hint) that the Perseid Meteor Shower will peak on August 12th! Get to some dark skies and watch the show. At the peak there are dozens of meteors per hour, […]
So we covered some nifty telescope math in Part 3, but now we come to the part of telescopes that doesn’t involve optics or optics math: The mount.
We have to confess: The most frequently asked question we get about telescope mounts is: “does the price include the mount/tripod?” (it does). But then we get asked […]
In Part 2 of our telescope FAQ series we described a little formula for telescopes where you determine the magnification you get: The telescope’s focal length divided by the eyepiece’s focal length = The Magnification.
But there are other factors to consider, such as Field of View. Field of View is how much of the […]
Continuing our series of Frequently asked questions we get about telescopes at the store we continue from part 1
“HOW MUCH DOES THIS TELESCOPE MAGNIFY?”
Now this question is more relevant but by no means the most important thing one should ask about one’s telescope.
First of all the answer is “magnification depends on the eyepieces you […]
When we help customers choose a new telescope they naturally have a lot of questions about the telescope they plan to buy. We’ve already done a Telescope Buyer’s Guide
but that doesn’t answer a lot of these questions directly. This entry hopes to be the first part of a series where we answer and cover […]
Spectrum Scientifics has now added the Knight Double-Sided Planisphere to its astronomy line-up!
The Knight planisphere is a vast improvement over previous planispheres that were either made of laminated cardboard, or were too large, or too small to be of use. The Knight planisphere is made of plastic, and has is double sided: one side for […]
Specturm Scientifics now carries the Orion StarBlast 6i Intelliscope!
We’ve already discussed our addition of the regular StarBlast 6 which actually caught us a bit off guard with its sales. And now Orion has developed a computer guided version using its popular Intelliscope system!
The difference is that you get the Intelliscope computer guidance system, with a […]
A telescope’s eyepieces are often one of the most underrated parts of the optical system. Many folks get caught up with aperture fever or drool over high-end apochromatic refractors while neglecting the fact that the eyepiece is almost 1/2 the optical system!
Most telescopes include 1 or 2 eyepieces. Depending on the model and the manufacturer […]
This is one of those examples of what an amateur can do. These are some of the most impressive shots of Mars we have seen from a terrestrial telescope and the animation is really cool.
You might want to check out the other pictures as well, the animated shots of the ISS are particularly impressive.
If […]
