A Beginners Guide To Stargazing Telescopes

If you love the night sky and would like to observe what goes on outside our planet in more detail, you may be looking at purchasing a telescope. Buying your very first telescope as a beginner can feel a little daunting when faced with the number of options there are available. Here at Grovers Optics, we want you to get the maximum enjoyment from your telescope, so we have put together a beginners guide to telescopes to help you choose the right option for you and ensure you continue to love looking at the cosmos!

Types of Telescopes

When looking at telescopes to buy, you may have some confusion over the different types of telescopes and what they mean. Is a reflector telescope better than a refractor? And why are some broken down into Newtonian or Cassegrain? Don’t worry, we are here to help!

Refractors

Refractor telescopes are made from more than one lens. So, when the light passes through the objective lens, it refracts the light to create an image which the eyepiece lens then magnifies. This is an amazing, yet simple system that allows a high optical quality, however the cheaper ones will tend to suffer from chromatic aberration and the bigger the lenses, the more expensive refractor telescopes can get.

Celestron Starsense Explorer DX 102AZ Refractor

The Celestron StarSense Refractors use your smartphone & their app to navigate you around the Cosmos. Using the phone’s camera as the guide to keep you straight. Very clever!

Price: £449.00 – view more information

Reflectors 

Reflector telescopes let in a lot more light than refractors thanks to their use of mirrors instead of lenses. They are sometimes referred to as Newtonian telescopes as they were invented by Isaac Newton. They are excellent value, especially for a beginner, however they will require a little maintenance to keep the mirrors inside the telescope dust-free and correctly aligned (collimated).

Sky-Watcher StarQuest 130P Reflector Newtonian

A 130mm 5″ Reflector, the StarQuest Series is a lightweight, ‘grab-and-go’ range combining proven high quality Sky-Watcher telescope optics with a newly designed and well-engineered equatorial mount.

Price: £219.00 – view more information

Cassegrain 

Cassegrain telescopes use both mirrors and lenses to create an image, allowing a higher magnification in a more compact size. Due to the combination of both mirrors and lenses, they can fall on the more expensive side, however, they are powerful, sharp and you can carry them anywhere.

Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 5″ Cassegrain

Cassegrain optical tube with StarBright XLT coatings and enough light gathering to view all the best celestial objects High Street Northallerton Open 7 days a week

Price: £549.00 – view more information

What to consider when purchasing a telescope

There are certain things to consider before looking at telescopes, you need to know the requirements that are important to you and what you want to prioritise. This will help you choose the right telescope for your needs.

Aperture

The aperture of your telescope refers to the diameter of the front (objective) lens or the mirror inside your telescope (int the case of a Newtonian). The larger the aperture, the more light is let into the telescope, allowing you to view objects further away & in finer detail.

If you are a beginner, then a telescope with an aperture between 70mm and 150mm would probably suffice. The larger the aperture or diameter of the lens, the bigger and more expensive a telescope gets.

Magnification

You may see magnification discussed a lot in the features of telescopes, and while a higher magnification is not a bad thing, after all, you want to be able to see as far as away as you can, it becomes irrelevant if the telescope you purchase only has a small aperture. This is because if the aperture isn’t big enough to focus an image of what you are looking at, a higher magnification means you’ll just be zooming in on a blurry, unfocused image. So, if you are a beginner, we wouldn’t recommend choosing a telescope with a high magnification over one with a higher aperture.

Mount

You should also take into account the mount & tripod on your telescope, if you want to transport your telescope outside on an evening, then having a huge support is not practical.

There are several types of mounts to consider, an alt-azimuth (ALT-AZ) mount which allows you to move up and down and from side to side, an equatorial mount (EQ) which has two axis, one of which is aligned with the rotational axis of the earth, and a computerised mount which lets you choose the object you want to look at it and the telescope will move to & track the chosen object.

For beginners, we would recommend sticking to an ALT-AZ mount. This changes if you want to enthusiastically image (photograph) the night sky, when you might prefer an EQ mount.

Sky-Watcher Explorer 130PS AZ5 f5 Reflector

Ideal No Fuss, Grab-and-Go Telescope for Easy Visual Astronomy! With an extremely useful 130mm of light gathering aperture and a superb parabolic primary mirror, the EXPLORER-130PS is a highly capable all-rounder for the observation of the Moon, bright planets, nebulae, galaxies and star clusters

Price: £299.000 – view more information

Price

When it comes to optics and in particular telescopes, you get what you pay for. Your choice may be entirely dependent on your budget and good telescopes that will enable you to appreciate the universe in all its glory may be rather expensive as a beginner. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any excellent telescopes for those on a budget, here at Grovers Optics we have a wide range of options to suit all buyers for example, but you can expect to be spending a minimum of £150 on a decent beginner’s telescope.

If you are purchasing a telescope for a young beginner, then you can pick up a good telescope for nearer £100.

Conclusion

If you are just starting out on your Astro-journey or are still an amateur that is looking to upgrade to something a little more special, we would recommend a reflector telescope with a high aperture as your budget will allow on an ALT-AZ mount. A Dobsonian telescope would work well for your needs & because the mount is cheaper, more of your budget goes into the optics. Alternatively, you may prefer a tripod with the same pan-tilt ALT-AZ ease with a refractor.

SkyWatcher Skyliner 150P 6″ Dobsonian Classic

The most economic way of attaining a long-focus small secondary Newtonian for sharp lunar and planetary images.

Price: £299.00 – view more information

Telescopes from Grovers Optics

Whether you are after Refractor, Newtonian, Cassegrain, or Dobsonian telescopes, we have the right optics for you. We have telescopes from all the leading brands, and they are available in stock to collect or deliver.

Telescope gift vouchers are also available to purchase for loved ones and would make a fantastic present!

If you can’t find what you need or simply need some advice on any of our products or brands, please feel free to contact us today and one of our friendly team members would be more than happy to help.

You can call us on: 01609 898098, email us: hello@grovers.biz or simply pop in to review our wonderful telescopes in person!