Grampa Don
Yep, that's me
- Location
- Orange county, Calif.
We used to have a member called Hi Desert Hal who had some really big scopes. Here are my two:
I envy those who have dark skies. Even on the best nights here I can only see a few stars naked eye. It makes finding objects tricky. But, that’s part of the challenge. I’ve seen all the planets (Pluto doesn’t count), 3 asteroids, and 3 comets.
A lot of people buy a small scope expecting to see things like the Hubble images. They soon get disappointed and give up. Even Hubble requires hours of exposure to get many of those images. With a small scope, galaxies and nebulae will look like a small fuzzy patch of light, if you can see them at all. If you have a fair size scope on a dark night globular clusters will show a fuzz ball and hundreds of tiny stars.
But, there are still neat things you can see. The moon looks great with any telescope or even binoculars. There are many open clusters of stars and no photo can do them justice. The brightest are the Pleiades, or seven sisters. In the late Fall or early Winter they are beautiful with binoculars or low power scope. Right now, high overhead in the evening is Vega, the second brightest star in our sky. With a moderate scope you could see the Ring nebula near it. It won’t look as great as the Hubble photo, but you can see that it is a ring.
If you think about buying a scope, do your homework first. Some of the cheap ones are really junk. The mount is as important as the optics. Anything over 300x is a waste. The atmosphere limits resolution. Stay away from anything that advertises more. There are plenty of free apps, reviews and info on the internet.
I’ve spent many pleasant evenings with my scopes. Photos will never replace seeing the sky with your own eyes. It’s just you and the real things. They reach out and touch you with their photons.
I envy those who have dark skies. Even on the best nights here I can only see a few stars naked eye. It makes finding objects tricky. But, that’s part of the challenge. I’ve seen all the planets (Pluto doesn’t count), 3 asteroids, and 3 comets.
A lot of people buy a small scope expecting to see things like the Hubble images. They soon get disappointed and give up. Even Hubble requires hours of exposure to get many of those images. With a small scope, galaxies and nebulae will look like a small fuzzy patch of light, if you can see them at all. If you have a fair size scope on a dark night globular clusters will show a fuzz ball and hundreds of tiny stars.
But, there are still neat things you can see. The moon looks great with any telescope or even binoculars. There are many open clusters of stars and no photo can do them justice. The brightest are the Pleiades, or seven sisters. In the late Fall or early Winter they are beautiful with binoculars or low power scope. Right now, high overhead in the evening is Vega, the second brightest star in our sky. With a moderate scope you could see the Ring nebula near it. It won’t look as great as the Hubble photo, but you can see that it is a ring.
If you think about buying a scope, do your homework first. Some of the cheap ones are really junk. The mount is as important as the optics. Anything over 300x is a waste. The atmosphere limits resolution. Stay away from anything that advertises more. There are plenty of free apps, reviews and info on the internet.
I’ve spent many pleasant evenings with my scopes. Photos will never replace seeing the sky with your own eyes. It’s just you and the real things. They reach out and touch you with their photons.
