Selecting A First Telescope

A refractor telescope uses a lens at the front to gather and focus light, producing a clear and high-contrast image. Its sealed tube design protects the optics, requires no alignment, and makes it a durable, low-maintenance choice for astronomers.

Refractor telescopes have a lens in the front, while the eyepiece is located at the rear. Refractors are more expensive than reflectors because they have several curved optical surfaces that need to be precisely figured. High-quality refractors have high contrast, show extreme clarity, have sealed tubes, never need alignment, and are lighter (and therefore more portable) than reflectors.

These are the short, stubby telescopes often used at star parties. They have names like Schmidt-Cassegrain or Maksutov-Cassegrain.

The advantage of this design is that they are short and portable. The disadvantages are that they have a very small field of view, and they lack the contrast seen in high-end refractors. This is because light is reflected back and forth, and there is a large secondary mirror in the middle of the light path.

You can download inexpensive or free planetarium apps like Star Walk, Star Chart (iPhone/iPad), or Starlight on your portable device to show you the sky above in real time and help you learn the constellations. These programs are simple and fun to use, and will point out the locations of planets and deep sky objects above you.

With your planetarium program you can now use binoculars or a wide-field telescope to get a closer look at objects like the moon, nebulae, and star clusters. Get out to a dark sky location. You will be amazed at how many stars are above and how awesome open clusters and the Milky Way appear in your binoculars. The advantage is that binoculars are readily available; the disadvantage is that you are limited to low power.

Having learned the night sky and several constellations, you are now ready to get your first telescope. We recommend that you purchase a wide-field refractor with good optics, a stable mount, and tripod.

The advantage of a good wide-field telescope over binoculars is that you can select different eyepieces to boost the power and see much more. It is possible to make out the moons of Jupiter with a good pair of binoculars, but you will never see the planets' surface features or the rings of Saturn.

The Stellarvue SVX90T is a 90 mm f-6 apo triplet made using our deluxe 3" dual speed, rack and pinion focuser, hand-figured in our own facility in Auburn, CA. This high-Strehl instrument is recommended for those not ready to jump too deep into our other SVX refractors, but wanting something they will keep. This is also a great telescope to use when starting to image the night sky by adding the SFFX-1 Photographic Field Flattener.

After imaging wide fields with the SVX90T, you may decide later to get involved in more serious Astrophotography. If this is the case, you may want to consider buying a larger Stellarvue which will also entail getting a larger telescope mount and tripod.

So... you want to start taking pictures through your telescope? If you think that someday you will want to try astrophotography, it is recommended that you first enjoy the visual performance of your telescope for at least a year. This will allow you to learn the night sky and get to know the various objects in space.

Learning how to take images can be a frustrating experience even with the best of equipment, so make sure you are ready before jumping off into the deep end. But when you are ready, make sure you get a highly accurate equatorial mount. While you may start off using your DSLR, eventually you will want to invest in a CCD camera dedicated to imaging the night sky.

Astro imaging is not as easy as it looks and there is a long learning curve. Make sure you are ready and properly outfitted before you take the plunge.