What a Home Telescope Can See

Video Transcript

"Now that you have a telescope, I don't want you to be disappointed. You can see wonderful things in the sky and incredible clusters of stars and galaxies. But don't expect your pictures to look like pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. These pictures we have at Dyer were taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, and gravitation lenses, you're not going to see things like that. And, big giant planetary nebula with color, you're not going to be able to see the color. Now, you can see galaxies, and you can see planetary nebula, but they will be faint, they'll look more like a dim smoke ring and with no color. Now, the Orion nebula is a wonderful thing you can see naked eye, so a small telescope is very good for that. And you'll be able to see the cloud and you'll be able to see, maybe a little greenish tint to it. You will be able to see some galaxies. Now, I want you to know, too, with a small telescope, sometimes you can see more stuff than you can with a large telescope. A six, eight inch telescope, aperture telescope, might give you a better view because some nights the air is not stable. If you walk outside and you look at the stars and you see them moving all over, twinkling, astronomers call it simulating, that's not really a good night to use your telescope. You want a night, when you look at the stars and it's as steady as it can possibly be, and the stars don't move at all. On those nights you'll have the best contrasting views, you'll have the sharpest views. So, when you walk outside, look at the brightest stars and see if their twinkling. If they are, your things won't be as great through your telescope on those nights."