Expert: Tom Whiting - 1/2/2012

Question
Dear Sir,I read your answer to a question about "celetron powerseeker 76 reflector".I was lucky,I read it just before I was about buy the same scope from "Tesco" in the UK where it is on sale at a reduced price of £50.00 approx.$77.0.Unlike USA telescopes are costlier in the UK and none of the USA online shops like Amazon.con, telescope.com or Orion are  prepared to ship to UK.I am on a budget and the options available to me are 1)70mm REFRACTORS(Celestron/Skywatcher)at £80.0/$124.0,2)3" reflector Dobsonian type f/4 (Skywatcher and Celestron) at around £60/$90.0 and 3) 114mm reflector(Celestron Astromaster) at a reduced price of £99.0/£154.00.I still regard the "celestron powerseeker 76" at £50,a good buy,but not after what you have advised.
I have read some books on astronomy,know where and how to find Big and little dippers,Polaris,Cassiopeia,Pegasus and andromeda.I have looked at the night sky with my recently acquired 20x50  binocular for the last one month but it shakes a lot as its quite heavy( I have reasonably steady hands)
I want to buy something which will help me see the moon and planets reasonably well(want to see saturn and its rings,Jupiter with moons) and the some galaxies(andromeda M31) and stars.It should not be very heavy and difficult to set up.I donot want to spend more than what I have mentioned as I donot know whether I will lose interest in the near future--if I can maintain my enthusism I propose to buy a costlier equipment.
To maintain my enthusiasm,I need a reasonably good scope,priced as above and not too heavy or difficult to set up.I have been looking at telescope buying guides on the internet and am quite belidered.Would you please help?

Answer
Hi Dipankar,
 I would make my next purchase a solid tripod for your fine 20 x 50 binoculars and use those on the night sky for the next 6-9 months before even considering a telescope. Did you read my advice off our club website, "Tom Whiting's Sound Advice for the Novice Observer" at
http://www.velocity.net/~bwhiting
yet?
Have you decided you'd rather specialize in moon/planets as opposed to deep sky objects?
(Each requires a different type of scope)... all airplanes fly but you don't send a bomber to do a fighter's job... scopes are the same way!
The reason for the delayed purchase of a scope... you say that you know the dippers, Polaris, Cassiopeia, Andromeda (the galaxy or the constellation?) and Pegasus?  But did you know that Polaris is a double star in a small telescope?  Did you know that the Big Dipper is only an asterism of 7 out of 57 naked eye stars in the huge constellation of Ursa Major?
Did you know that there are 7 Messier (deep sky) objects in and around the Big Dipper that you can see (as little fuzzy spots) with your binoculars?  (Do you even know what a Messier object is?  If not, believe me, you're not ready for a telescope as yet!)
These in and around the Big Dipper are M-81, 82, M-97 (Owl Nebula, all the rest are galaxies),
M-101, M108, and M-109.  M-40 is also there, but that is a Charles Messier mistake, a simple,
faint double star... one of 5 of his "mistakes" in logging deep sky objects.
Did you know that Cassiopeia has 2 Messier objects? Both open star clusters M-52 and 103?
Do you know where these are located in the constellation?
Do you have a star atlas specific enough to show where all these Messier objects are at?
Do you know that Pegasus has one beautiful Messier Object, M-15, tied for 3rd place for Globular star clusters?  Do you know where it's located? Does your current star chart plot it?
If not, you need a deeper and better star atlas (most of these cost 20 to 40 USD dollars, but they are good for 40- 50 years, so that's only about a dollar a year, cost-averaged out,
Did you know that there are 109 Messier objects in our night sky?  These are the finest of the galaxies, globular star clusters, open star clusters, and nebulae in our night sky.
You think this is "advanced" knowledge?  No, this is just the beginning. There are 7840 NGC objects after those, then you get into IC objects and UGC galaxies too!  Messier objects are just the very beginning of objects to observe.
Did you know that over half the stars are double and multiples, visible in a small telescope,
some quite colorful. Cassiopeia has 2 of them, Eta and Iota Cassiopeiae. (Iota Cass is known to be one of the prettiest triple stars in our night sky!
Andromeda has several pretty doubles, stars Gamma and Pi.  Do you know your lower case Greek Letters?  Better memorize all 24 of them... that's how we name the brighter stars in a constellation, followed by the Genitive (possessive) case of the constellaltion.  Did you know that?  If not, you have a ways to go before a telescope. Knowledge comes first in our great hobby, equipment (scopes) come LAST.
Do you know the magnitude scale yet, where Venus is -4, Jupiter is -2, the brighter stars are zero and 1st magnitude, and the dimmest naked eye stars are 6th magnitude? (this is very basic stuff here!) Yes, it's a reverse scale with each change in whole number magnitudes are 2.5 times change in brightness.  And it's exponential scale, not linear. In other words, it doesn't go 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10... difference in brigtness, but rather 2.5, 2.5 squared, 2.5 cubed, and so on.  5 magnitude changes are a 100 (2.5 to the 5th power) change in brightness.  Did you know that?  It's very basic to our great hobby!
Also, locate, find, and join the "local" astronomy club in your area. Go out observing with them... most observers love to show off their equipment and teach beginners the night sky. See what equipment they use...listen and learn from them, to avoid buying the wrong equipment
(scope)later on.  That's how to enter our great hobby.

Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA USA

PS.. fortunately, about 30% of those Messier deep sky objects are actually visible to the unaided naked eye in a very dark sky, so that makes the job quite easy in the beginning.
Some examples are... M-45 is simply the Pleiades open star cluster in Taurus.
M-44 is the naked eye Beehive star cluster in Cancer.
M-35 in Gemini, M-41 in Canis Major, M-42 nebula in Orion, M-24 and M-8 (Lagoon Nebula) in Sagittarius, M-31 the Andromeda Galaxy, M-7 in Scorpius... ALL naked eye Messier objects in a dark sky. I didn't list them all, just the brighter and easy ones.
You should know where all these "easy ones" are at (be able to point your finger at them!) AND have a star atlas that shows exactly where they are relative to the constellation stars.
As for scopes, most of us have found that anything less than $500 USD is generally a piece of junk!  And if you select deep sky objects as your speciality, then you want at the very minimum a 6" diameter glass (Newtonian reflector telescope), preferably bigger. And this will set you back around $500 USD what with extra eyepieces, dew shields, finderscope, telrad, etc.  And this is just for a manual scope and mount.  Hey, 500 bucks? How much is a motorcycle? Boat? Airplane? ATV? snow mobile?  Any hobby is going to set you back a bit. And all those other items require gas, maintenance, license, registration, storage in winter, did I mention maintenance?  What do we astronomers need?  A good star atlas and a few extra eyepieces, and that's all.  Now... who has the cheaper hobby?
Tom

FOLLOW UP:
Oh, here is another good point to think about... your 50 mm binoculars are actually equivalent to a 3 inch telescope already.  So when you DO make a move, you want to have a big gain over what you already have. (For instance, as an amateur, I went from a 6 to a 13 to an 18 to a 24 and finally to a 30 inch portable scope). Other amateurs do the same. You want to go from a
current "3" inch to at least a 6 or 8 inch glass, then upward if your interest increases.
Jumping from a 50 mm to only a 114 mm is like jumping from a 3 inch equivalent, to a 4 inch.  It's just not worth it for the small increase in light gathering power. In astronomy BIGGER is always BETTER. You want to be thinking of a least a 6 or 8 inch glass, just out of common sense and practicality.  Otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle and expense. Your binoculars are already good down to 10th or 11th magnitude objects; a 6 inch glass gets you down to 13th magnitude objects, and an 8 inch glass gets you down to nearly 14th magnitude objects.
(For future reference, an 18 inch mirror gets you down to 16th magnitude objects, and my 30 inch mirror gets me down to about 17.2 magnitude objects).
Tom
tom