Celestron’s PowerSeeker telescope features a 70mm aperture and a 700mm focal length. It comes with a Barlow lens, a 20mm and a 4mm eyepieces for 35x and 175x magnified viewing. A 5×24 finderscope is attached to the side of the main scope and an alt-azimuth aluminium tripod mount with a convenient accessory tray is also included. My thinking was that for a kid to get interested in astronomy, he or she needs first to be able to find their way around the sky. The star atlas will show the beginner where to look to find clusters, nebulae, the Andromeda galaxy, etc., and the binocs will whet their interest enough to learn more and want to see them in more detail. THEN is when they'll be ready for a telescope. At any rate, he or she will still need the binoculars when they have a telescope, so the binocs are the perfect "starter". Of course, if they have the advantage of living where there is a good astronomy club or society with telescopes for the members to use, they won't have to buy a scope at all! You might think you want the highest magnification possible, but that’s not so. The higher the power, the smaller the field of view, which means you’ll only see a part of M45, the Pleiades star cluster, or M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Also, the higher the power, the fuzzier the view. A good telescope lets you reach about 50× per inch of aperture before the fuzziness gets out of hand, so a 3″ scope would let you use 150×, but beyond that you’re just magnifying the blur, a phenomenon known as empty magnification. That means a 3″ by 900-mm telescope can use a 6-mm eyepiece, at best — (900/6 = 150). No knowledge necessary!” the ads will say. Aside from the fact that most of us get into astronomy to learn stuff, that’s seldom true anyway. With a low-end Go To scope (which is what the computerized ones are called), you’re likely to learn quite a bit of computer debugging and maybe even mechanical repair skills before you even get your first look through one. Seriously, I have seen people spend their entire night fiddling with the electronics, trying in vain to get the computer to work properly, and never once getting to look at anything in the sky.

The Galilean telescope goes by that name because it is the same design Galileo Galilei used to discover the four big moons of Jupiter and other astronomical objects. 7. How to find Saturn with my telescope? Once the COVID situation has passed, I fully intend to bring a few different scopes to star parties going forward. 60mm f/15 eq refractor will factor in for sure, so people know what they can actually do and not do. "Want to buy your first scope? Take a walk with me...." This Slokey telescope has a phone adapter that helps you to locate celestial bodies, eliminating the need to do so manually. Moreover, it has a red dot finder scope for the manual location of heavenly bodies. The SkyWays set likewise comes with a lightweight and fully adjustable alt-azimuth tripod that has a height range of 49cm to 132cm. The lower height option is a viable reason why it’s considered as one of the best telescopes for kids. The Slokey SkyWays 50080 is a bigger and better version of the SkyWays 40070 (see above). It’s aimed at beginner astronomers but is geared more towards adults than youngsters.Conclusion: Even the difference between supposedly "excellent" and "superb" optics is, during fine seeing, visible to anyone -- even beginners -- who looks through the scope really carefully. And who doesn't want to look through their scope carefully? And I've seen cheap telescopes, and some not cheap, that are a lot worse than even 1/2 wave. Years ago I bought a used 12.5-inch f/6 reflector made by a major manufacturer; it had obvious spherical aberration, and when I had the primary mirror professionally tested, it came out as a smooth, 7/8-wave hyperboloid: well made to the wrong spec. Are these good? Probably not if you are biased towards using high end equipment. Are they usable for a starter to learn the sky? Hell yes. Nice to see articles like this regularly. So many get a trashy 60mm refractor with an equally trashy equatorial mount, and get turned off the whole hobby before they begin.

It’s powerful enough to bring bright deep-sky objects like the Orion nebula and Andromeda galaxy into view, as well as provide sharp, detailed images of astronomical bodies that are a little closer to home, such as the Moon and the planets that neighbour Earth. A reflector telescope uses a concave mirror, known as the primary mirror, to gather and focus light which it then reflects down the tube, usually off of a second mirror, onto the eyepiece for observation. Deep-Sky Objects: The aperture size enables the observation of various deep-sky objects, including star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. While not suitable for detailed observations of faint objects, it provides a good introduction to these celestial wonders. The SloKey Skyways 40070 Telescope is lightweight and easy to set up, making it a convenient choice for amateur astronomers: Aperture is represented by the diameter of the objective lens or primary mirror but is actually measured by the total surface area. Keep this in mind when comparing aperture sizes because it means that a 100mm lens can see 50% more detail than a 70mm lens. For the most part, telescopes with an aperture of less than 70mm are viewed as more of a toy than a scientific instrument. However, they aren’t always a bad choice when searching for budget telescopes or a way to view terrestrial objects.Using a Barlow lens will increase the magnification, but it will also reduce the image quality and also the effective aperture, so the image will not be as bright and contrasty. I would suggest forgetting about the Barlow lens (at least initially), and just work your way up from the 25mm eyepiece to the 6mm. There is no point in using the 25mm eyepiece with the Barlow, since that will only give you 60x magnification, and trying to use the 6mm eyepiece with the Barlow is likely to prove frustrating, if not unworkable. The 1/2-wave scope was so obviously inferior to everyone, expert or beginner, that we eventually put it aside to save time. The big finding was that during times of fine seeing, *nearly everyone* -- experienced or not -- was able to see that the image shown by the 1/8-wave mirror was less good than with the 1/20-wave mirror. Its optics are a step up from the 40070, coming with a 3x Barlow lens and three eyepieces (25, 10 and 6mm) to offer magnification of up to 250 times to give you slightly deeper views into the night sky. You’ll be able to enjoy sharp and detailed views of Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons, and glimpse some of the galaxies that lie beyond the Milky Way.

Lunar Observations: With the right magnification, this telescope allows for breathtaking views of the Moon’s surface, revealing craters, mountains, and other lunar features in stunning detail.

Frequently asked questions

What you want for your telescope is a good low-power eyepiece, probably a 32-mm or 25-mm Plössl, and a medium-power eyepiece, around a 10-mm Plössl. You can increase your collection as you gain experience. Figuring out your surroundings is key – it’s no good getting a telescope that might not be suitable for your particular area, because you will only end up frustrated when you can’t see anything! You really should take some time to get to know what it is you will be gazing into, before you gaze into it using some fairly pricy equipment. There are many styles of reflector telescopes but the most popular, and possibly the best reflector telescope, is the Newtonian reflector invented by Sir Isaac Newton. It features an eyepiece on the side of the scope which allows you to have a shorter mount. You missed the likelihood of mediocre to bad optics. Years ago we ran a test for Sky & Telescope at Stellafane, with four identical 6-inch reflectors aimed at Polaris, a nice unequal double star that doesn't move. Their mirrors were carefully figured and measured, by an optical expert with professional gear, to be 1/2-wave, 1/4-wave, 1/8-wave, and 1/20 wave (all paraboloids of course). We carefully collimated them.

A great many would-be astronomers never reach their dreams, because they get frustrated and give up too soon, before they have even learned the basics of the night sky.

Few tips before you make your final decision

It’s a good idea to start by getting to know a few basic terms – the horizon, zenith, meridian, the North or South pole, the celestial equator and the ecliptic. The SloKey Skyways 40070 Telescope offers a decent magnification power and aperture size. With a magnification range of 20x to 200x and a 70mm aperture, this telescope enables amateur astronomers to observe celestial objects with clarity and detail. Here’s how these features benefit stargazers: Swing your telescope to the right spot in the sky and look for a yellowish-golden bright object that’s shining steadily. Once you find it, use your finderscope to focus on it then increase the magnification of your eyepiece until you can see the planet’s rings. I’ll make an absolute statement here: An equatorial mount is a poor mount for a beginner. Later on, when your hobby has flourished, say you concentrate on planetary observing or have taken up astrophotography, you might happily consider paying tens of thousands of dollars for the best equatorial mount on the planet. But to start out with, equatorial mounts are simply awful. They’re difficult to set up, difficult to use, and the cheap ones are shakier than a leaf in a breeze.