Quote:
Originally Posted by Driller703
Can anyone recommend a good quality (not “professional grade”) telescope for viewing planets and the moon especially? Say, less than $500.
I’ve seen them advertised that will connect to a Smart Phone.
Thanks
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Pretty hard to give a recommendation w/o some background. So...
Telescopes do essentially two things: they make small things big, and they make big things bright.
There are two primary types of telescopes: reflectors (also called "Newtonians), and refractors. Reflectors have a curved primary mirror in the back, which reflects light to the front via a diagonal mirror into the eyepiece. Refractors have the primary lens in front, which focuses the light back usually via a diagonal mirror and then into the eyepiece.
Telescopes are sized by the diameter of their primary mirror or lens. Hence, a 6" reflector is a newtonian with a 6" light-gathering mirror in the back. A 3" refractor has a 3" primary lens in front. The larger the mirror/primary lens, the more light your telescope will gather and all things being equal, the more you will see.
Reflectors give the best bang for the buck. You can easily pay 2-3 times more for a refractor as you would for a like-sized (in light gathering ability) reflector.
Your telescope will come with one or more eyepieces, designated by size (10 mm, 25 mm, etc.). With eyepieces the LOWER the number the HIGHER the magnification. The higher-numbered eyepieces (lowest power) usually give the best and clearest views.
Telescopes are also designated by their focal length ("F" number). The higher the focal length (usually around F8 and up) the better it will be for planets, the moon, double stars, etc. Small things big. The lower the focal length (F3.5, F4, F5) the better it will be for things like galaxies, star clusters, etc. Big things bright. F6 - F7 range are usually the one size fits all telescopes.
A good mount is at least as important as a good telescope. A poor mount magnifies vibrations such as cars going by, wind, a bump here and there, etc. Equatorial mounts are the best, also the most complicated and expensive. Altazimuth mounts are usually those forked things that come with cheap department-store telescopes--cheap, but bad. Dobsonian mounts are basically base-mounted swivels and are best for those who just want to look and are not interested in astrophotography.
Anyway, with all that said, my preference would be a 6" - 8" Dobsonian (Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount). They're basically point-and-look. Nothing fancy. I'd go with a tried-and-true name: Zhumell, Explore Scientific, Meade, Celestron, Orion, etc. The Skywatcher brand gets pretty poor reviews. The Chinese telescopes (and Amazon carries dozens of them) are recognizable by the fact that they either have no brand listed or has one of those invented all-cap ridiculous "names". My personal opinion is to avoid them like the plague.
Don't order anything labeled "OTA". It stands for optical tube assembly only and what you'll get is a tube, the primary mirror or lens, and probably the diagonal mirror. No mount, eyepieces, etc. which you would have to purchase separately. Dobsonians are nearly always sold as a package (scope, mirrors, mount, eyepieces, etc.) and amazon usually lists "what's in the box". You'll have to do some assembly but usually not difficult: YouTube has lots of assembly videos.
A couple of caveats: Reflectors need something called "collimation" from time to time, which is basically going out of alignment. Collimating a scope is not difficult: it will probably come with instructions as to how to do it, though it is intimidating the first time. Also, don't expect to see anything like what you see on TV or in books/magazines. Those are usually professional-grade pictures. What you will be able to see will depend on how well you know the night sky and also on the seeing conditions, and overall The Villages is pretty light-polluted. Going out in the country a ways, or finding a spot in TV well away from as much light as possible, will help.
Sorry for the long reply, but this is really bare-minimum stuff you'd need to know and there is a whole lot more that you'll learn on your own.