Many of you who are buying your first telescope most likely approach it the same way you buy a television. Regardless of the size of the screen, it shows you the same picture. Well other than sharing the first four letters telescopes and televisions are not very similar devices.
Believe it or not, telescopes are much more like golf clubs.
Your basic set of golf clubs has 12 clubs in it; 3 woods, 7 irons, a wedge, and a putter. If I take you out to a golf course and hand you just the driver and say play the course, could you, yes but your results would not be optimal and you would experience a lot of frustration. If we go to the other end of the bag and I have you play the course with just a putter, same experience, yes you could play it but there would be significant frustration. Okay, how about I give you a 5-iron and ask you to play the course better results, a little less frustration but again not optimal like having the full set available to you.
In much the same way, using a telescope is very similar. They are implements/tools to achieve an objective. There is no one club/telescope that lets you optimally play the entire course which in our case is the entire universe. If you look at the signatures of a lot of the regular posters you will notice that we have several telescopes because we understand that each of them has their strengths and weaknesses.
So when you are considering buying your first telescope there are four major questions you need to answer for yourself:
- 1) What do I want to view (planetary/lunar or deep-sky objects or both)?
- 2) Where will I be viewing from (a heavily light-polluted versus a very dark location, or somewhere in between)?
- #3) How much weight can I comfortably lift up to a chest-high level (big scopes are heavy and if you can't lift it, you won't use it)?
- #4) How much can you realistically spend on this new piece of equipment (be flexible, we're great at spending YOUR money)?
Once you answer these four questions, suggesting a telescope for you becomes a lot easier keeping in mind that there is no single telescope that will optimally show you the entire universe. That does not mean that there aren't telescopes that will do a good job on all of the above. Remember though, there are always trade-offs and the phrase; Jack of all trades but the master of none, absolutely applies to telescopes.
I hope this analogy helps you understand that telescopes are not a one-size-does-all type of tool. And I also hope that you have seen a set of golf clubs at some point in your life.
Lastly, this analogy absolutely applies to your decision making when you start thinking about acquiring astrophotography equipment.
Cheers,
JT
And in case you didn't get my veiled attempt at symbolism -- the 5-iron is an