What telescope should I buy?

when people find out I take pictures of space the first question they ask me is what telescope should I buy well that's actually kind of a difficult question to answer I actually need a little bit more information on how you plan to use your telescope let's put it this way let's say that I ask you what kind of car should I buy well you would have some questions for me are you going to put bags of concrete and Lumber in it you probably want a truck have you got a bunch of kids that you're taking back and forth to school and football games and stuff you probably want a minivan there's lots of different kinds of cars for lots of different kinds of purposes and the same applies to telescopes there are so many kinds of telescopes out there but really they only fall into two basic categories one uses a mirror to focus the light and one uses lenses to focus the light the mirror ones we call those reflectors and the lens ones we call those refractors now there are variations on this this theme but that is the two main categories now you'll be able to tell the difference between these two because the reflectors tend to be short and fat and the refractors tend to be long and skinny and so the first question people usually ask is which one of these two should I get I would argue if this is your first telescope and you just want to be able to look at space I'd argue that it really doesn't matter now I might get a lot of anger comments about this in the comment section but the way that I feel about this is that the mount is actually more important to a beginner than the telescope is now hear me out on this when I first got my first telescope as a kid it had two knobs and I had to use a star chart to find the targets that I wanted to see so let's say that there was a nebula or something that I wanted to see over here I had to find these constellations and say oh my Target's between these two stars so I had to find those two stars and go halfway between them and then I'd have to scan the sky back and forth until I finally found the thing that I was looking for it took a long time to do this so I might only get to see one or two things per night this is even harder if you don't know how to read a star chart so if this is you if you've never been able to see the constellations it just looks like a bunch of dots you I did a video on this exact topic there's a trick to being able to see the constellations I'll put a link to that video in the description but I got good news for you either way you don't need to read Star Charts or know how to see the constellations or anything else because they make mounts now that are computerized it comes with a little hand controller you just dial in what you want to see and show me Mars you press the button and the telescope will just automatically move to that Target it knows where everything's at you look in it you see Mars you punch show me Jupiter it goes to Jupiter and you can see a whole bunch of Targets in one night now the reason that I recommend this type of telescope is because it is so easy to use if you get frustrated with your Hardware then you're not going to use it it's going to sit in a closet someplace and unfortunately this is what I hear happening to most people who get telescopes they don't know how to use them they get frustrated with it and it goes in a closet never to be seen again these go-to mounts make space more accessible and frankly a lot more fun so I highly recommend this now aside from being able to find the thing you want to see another reason that people's telescopes end up in the closet is because of unrealistic expectations so let's talk about that for a moment when you see online these amazing pictures that people take you might think that that's what you're going to be able to see in your telescope and that's just not the case a camera is far more sensitive to light than our eyes are and that means that it can see a lot more details than your eyes are going to be able to see so if your plan is to use your telescope for optical viewing if you're going to be looking in it with your eyes then I want to make clear what it is you're going to be seeing our eyes have two kinds of cells in them cones and rods the cones allow you to see in color but they're not very good in seeing in low light situations the rods will let you see in low light but they they can only see in black and white Shades of Gray the telescope is going to give you enough light to be activate your Rod so you'll be able to see in grayscale but you're probably not going to be able to see in color so the first thing you need to understand is that the images you see with your eye when you look in the telescope you're you're probably not going to see any color it's going to be grayscale the other thing you want to think about is what exactly are you going to be able to see let's say that you point your telescope at a Galaxy or something those are very far away and they are very faint you'll be able to see some galaxies with your telescope but they will be very faint smudges you're not going to see these magnificent spiral arms well there's a couple of galaxies you can see that with but for the most part they're just going to be a faint smudge that will often disappoint people they say I paid all this money for a telescope and all I see is this smudge so here's what I want you to think about when you're looking at that smudge and you're starting to get disappointed I want you to think about what exactly it is that you're seeing that Galaxy might be a hundred million light years away that means the photons from that Galaxy left a hundred million years ago and they have been traveling through space all that time they've dodged asteroids and planets and Cosmic dust they somehow made it through our atmosphere without getting deflected by dust and Smog and everything else and they made it all the way down to the ground and just happened to hit your telescope and get focused into your eye and it was your eye after this hundred million year long journey that finally stopped that Photon you're the only one that will get to see those photons that are entering your eye and that's an amazing thing to think that these things have been traveling for 100 million years and you're the only one that gets to see them in that exact moment it's amazing to see spectacular pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Telescope but there's something different about seeing it live with your own eyes in your own backyard and if you think about things in that perspective it really starts to make it feel pretty cool now here's another thing to think about because this light is 100 million years old that means you're actually looking back in time you're not seeing that Galaxy as it is right now you're seeing it as it was a hundred million years ago so your telescope is actually a time machine that's spectacular so now when you look at that little smudge think about it in those terms and it really starts to make the things that you're seeing feel amazing the telescope that I recommend for beginners is the same telescope that I use it's made by a company called Celestron and it's called The Next Star what's great about it is it has one of these go-to mounts and it comes in a variety of sizes to suit a variety of different kinds of budgets so let's talk about the price range of telescopes when you look at a telescope the light comes into its opening in the front we call this the objective if you have a small opening then a little bit of light will be able to get in if you have a big opening then a lot of light will be able to get in so why is this important our eyes are not very good at seeing low light things the more light you can gather the brighter the object will be so what this means is that you'll be able to see fainter objects if you can see fames or objects then that means you'll have more things to look at in the sky and that's always fun so as far as price is concerned the more light Gathering Power you have the more expensive the telescope will be so for this next star line that I usually recommend to beginners it comes in a variety of sizes including eight inch six inch and four inch and as you step down in size it becomes a little bit more affordable but the trade-off is that you're going to be sacrificing light Gathering Power now even the four inch version of this telescope is still amazing you're still going to be able to see clouds on Jupiter you're going to be able to see the moons going around Jupiter you're going to be able to see the rings of Saturn you're going to be able to see the phases of Venus Venus goes through phases just like our moon does like Crescent phases and stuff and you're going to be able to see that you're going to be able to see Mars and its reddish color it's just when you get into the the deeper space objects like galaxies and things like that that that larger aperture is going to be able to see a little bit deeper into space so the question is whether or not that extra reach that extra light Gathering Power is that something that's important to you and are you willing to pay the extra money to get that extra light Gathering Power now this telescope that I'm recommending to you has what's called an ALT as Mount what that means is that the little Motors in it will allow it to move left and right up and down it's really easy to set up all you have to do is just put the tripod on level ground if your ground is a little unlevel you can adjust the tripod to make the tripod level you put the telescope on top of that and screw in three bolts that's all the setup you have to do then you turn it on you tell it the date and time and you Viewpoint at three bright things in the sky you don't even need to know what those things are so no read in Star Charts you just say that's bright and you point the telescope at it and then you point the telescope at this one over here and one over here I try and pick three targets that are kind of far away from each other from that point on it knows where everything else in the sky is you tell it to go to Mars it goes to Mars you tell it to go to the Moon it goes to the moon it's that easy it takes me about 10 minutes to go from packed up to setup in my backyard a telescope that is that fast and easy to set up is a telescope that you'll actually want to use now I'm going to give you a warning sooner or later as you're using your telescope you're going to get the idea to take your little camera phone and you're going to put it on the eyepiece of your telescope and you're going to try and take a picture and you might actually get a picture it'll be a little fuzzy it'll be a little blurry but a picture that you took of space and it will scratch and itch you didn't even know you had so here's the thing you're going to say well I wonder if there's something I can do to make my picture a little less fuzzy a little less blurry so you'll buy in a little accessory to hold your phone nice and still for you and it will work better but you'll still think I think I can get this less fuzzy less blurry you're going down the astrophotography rabbit hole so here's my warning for you astrophotography is a lot of fun and it's really rewarding especially when you start getting really cool pictures and you're like I took that and it kind of looks like what the Hubble Space Telescope took but I did it with my own equipment in my own backyard that is just cool I love astrophotography this YouTube channel is about learning new things but most of my videos are about astrophotography just because I'm so passionate about it if you decide that you want to take pictures of space I highly encourage you to watch some of my YouTube videos what will happen is you'll buy some parts that you think you need that you probably don't really need and they're not really going to improve your photography I did that I bought a lot of stuff that I didn't end up actually needing and Telescope stuff is kind of expensive so watch my videos first I'll walk you through the different kinds of things that you actually need to make this work so that you won't waste a bunch of money if you know right now that you're going to want to get into astrophotography then this alt as Mount that I'm suggesting to you is probably not the best choice what you're going to need is something called an equatorial Mount and here's the difference the alt as Mount moves left and right up and down an equatorial Mount moves in an arc because that's how the Stars actually move in the night sky so when you're taking a long exposure photograph if you're using an ALT as Mount that is doing this left right up and down thing that means that in order to track a star it's going to have to go like in the stair step pattern an equatorial mount isn't going to do that it's just going to track smoothly if your Mount is doing the stair step pattern your pictures are going to come out a little bit blurry the equatorial Mount is going to make them come out nice and clean they make go-to mounts that are also equatorial mounts so you still get the benefit of being able to just type in show me Mars and it just goes there but an equatorial amount is quite a bit more money the astrophotography rabbit hole is an expensive hobby so know that in advance now you don't have to get all these fancy things to be able to take pictures of space I've done videos on this as well in fact I'll link another video in the description if you're new to astrophotography and all you want to use is just your cell phone or maybe just a regular camera um there's I've got tips for you on how you can use that stuff and you don't even need a telescope at all now do you need a refractor or a reflector since we've discussed the mount in in my opinion that's probably the most important part especially for a beginner what about the telescope we talked about how the opening of the telescope determines how much light Gathering Power you have a reflector the ones that use the mirrors those are going to be fatter they're going to be able to collect a lot of light for the same price the refractor telescope that uses a lens is going to be smaller now the reason for this is it just costs more money to grind a lens than it does to make these big mirrors for some reasons it's a manufacturing thing I guess so you'll be able to get a factor telescope capable of collecting a lot more light if you go the reflector route refractors are also awesome telescopes and if you get a smaller one they can be very affordable they can sometimes be more affordable than the reflectors so which one do you need if you're a beginner I'd argue that it really doesn't matter if you're getting into astrophotography then a lot more things start to come into play and perhaps astrophotography telescopes needs to be its own video I use this next star telescope that I'm recommending to the beginner who just wants to use their eye that's the kind of telescope that I use and I take some amazing pictures with it this type of telescope is uh the stars do get a little bit blurry on the edges of my field of view so if you know that you're going to be getting into astrophotography Celestron makes a telescope that is very similar to this but it's called The Edge HD and it's a little bit more money but the Stars won't be blurry on the edges of your field of view so that might be something that you want to think about if you had fun or learned something today then I hope that I have earned a subscription and please also hit the bell and leave me a comment as well I know it's kind of annoying but that stuff really does help the channel if we feed the YouTube algorithm then it will send more viewers our way and more viewers means that I'll be able to make more videos like this until next time clear skies [Music] thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mr. Wilson's Channel

Views: 36,809

Keywords: Telescope, astrophotography, astronomy, celestron, nexstar, sky-watcher, review, first time buyer, beginner, how to use a telscope, space, best telescope

Id: uIBFtxOqdtM

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 25 2023