Video: What to Look for in First Telescope

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A discussion of what make the best first telescope. Learn buying tips for telescopes in this free home astronomy equipment video from a telescope designer and manufacturer.

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Video Transcript

For you folks out there thinking about buying a telescope for your own use or the use of your children or whatever. I often recommend a small refractor such as this. It has a objective lens in the front to guide as a light. An eye piece back here that magnifies light. It also has what we call a star diagonal so that when you're looking up in the sky you're not straining your neck too much. This one erects the image and makes it very nice to use in daytime as a spotter scope. So this telescope not only would be good for wide field low power views of the sky. Which you could see the moon's craters. You could see the moons around Jupiter and sometimes even the rings of Saturn if Saturn is close. But it can also be doubly used in the daytime as a spotting scope. Very handy, lightweight. Take it to the beach. Take it on vacation. It doesn't need a real heavy tripod. You may already have one of those. And if you graduate to a larger telescope in the near future this could be what we call a grab and take along. Or a grab and go telescope. Or even someday if you get a really big telescope you might even mount this on the side of your big one to use as a finder scope for the big telescope. So you can always find a good use for a small refractor. They're maintenance free. And as long as you don't drop them and break them they should stay collimation. Should stay usable for many years and you'll have a long good life out of them.

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What to Look for in First Telescope

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