It's a question that I (and most amateur astronomers) get from friends from time to time: "I want to look at stuff in the sky - what sort of telescope should I get?" It is a tough question to answer because there are a multitude of variables (like how dark your sky is), a wide variety of celestial objects for which each has a "best" instrument, and the prospective user's existing familiarity with the night sky.
It is understandable why folks get the urge to grab a scope and go out into the night. The images sent back from our spacecraft are stunning to say the least. And while most people grasp that their telescope is going to fall short of a billion dollar scientific instrument, they likely also have acquaintances posting to Facebook or Instagram with some pretty cool stuff. That's part of the problem with social media - it makes stuff look easy since we only display our victories, not the flubs we made getting there.
OK, so rather than totally dodging the question with a "it depends..." answer, let's consider the following scenario. We have a newbie who really knows very little about finding things in the night sky and who lives in suburbia (where their sky is not going to be bleached out by a ton of lights). They'd love to see a galaxy, some beautiful star clusters, and maybe a nebula (gas cloud) or two. They'd like to see Saturn's rings and Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
Those two sets of objectives (Deep Space Objects [DSO] and Solar System Objects) are somewhat mutually exclusive for our beginner. DSO present the challenge of being faint and potentially very difficult to find for a new telescope user. Of course you can buy a scope with computer assisted GoTo that will point the telescope to the object if you can align it properly (not to mention that you'll be jumping into the hobby for a much bigger financial bang).
Planets, being brighter, are much easier to find with your telescope. However, features like the polar ice caps of Mars and the belts of Jupiter are more subtle than you might imagine to pick out with your eye. It's almost like playing an instrument with planetary observing - you need practice before you can detect some of the cool things your telescope can show you.
So - how can you break into this hobby without breaking the bank? The answer lies in a nice set of binoculars. Most people don't even consider them because they believe they are not powerful enough. The truth is that their wide field and additional light gathering power will indeed open up a lot of celestial DSO for you. They have the added benefit of being user friendly - no need to align anything, just pick them up and step outside to begin exploring. And - they pack easily for that trip to the beach or the mountains where the skies are much darker than at home.
There are a lot of sites with binocular recommendations. One thing to know up front is that the first number in the binocular description is the magnification (or power), the second is the diameter of the front lens (larger diameter = ability to see fainter objects). I personally own two pairs: a 7x50 by Celestron and a 15x70 by Oberwerk. The former are reasonably light and easy to use, the latter are a bit heavier but give wonderful views. I'd recommend a 7x50 or 8x56 for someone starting off - something you should be able to do for under $150 easily.
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| Binoculars - ready to go & user friendly! |
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| "Sky Safari" App |
Equipment is only half the battle. The really important thing is to begin to learn your way around the sky so that you can find things to look at. You don't need the binoculars to start this, your eyes and a star chart (or, even better, an app on your smart phone that can simulate the sky where you point the phone) are all you need. Start learning to identify the bright stars, then trace out the other stars in the constellation that has the bright star. From there see if you can locate stars in some of the dimmer constellations between the bright stars. As you do this you'll also become familiar with how astronomers quantify the brightness of an object (its "magnitude"). Once you've made friends with the stars overhead you can use them as markers to find the more interesting stuff.
Like what? Well, on a crisp February night you could swing by the Orion Nebula, a hydrogen gas cloud birthing new stars. Or high up in the sky catch the Seven Sisters (Pleaides), a beautiful collection of diamonds in the sky. For something more subtle you can track down the oval smudge of light that is the Andromeda galaxy lying some 2 million light-years from Earth. And since Jupiter is out in the evening sky take a moment to check it out - you may not see the Great Red Spot but you'll likely get to see some of its moons very close by as little stars. For other ideas I'd suggest picking up a book such as Touring the Universe Through Binoculars and let it guide you to a lot of fascinating destinations.
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| The tiny cloud represents the Orion Nebula (It looks much better from dark skies) |
An important lesson that you'll quickly learn is that when it come to the night sky a camera is much better equipped to show color and detail than our eyes. The camera opens its lens and collects light for many seconds, our eyes take an instantaneous reading of the photons. As such you'll not see the pinkish tinge in the Orion Nebula nor the spiral arms of Andromeda. But, you still do get to see them first hand, and that can be rewarding and exciting as well.
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| Orion Nebula - 2 sec Exposure |
If you are still at it with your binoculars some 6 months later and you want to take the next step, then I'd say invest in a telescope. A great idea would be to go to a local club's star party and look through a variety of telescopes. But even if you can't, you cannot really go wrong getting an uncomplicated Dobsonian telescope in the 6-10" mirror size range. The additional light gathering power and magnification will open up a much larger range of DSO that you can hunt down from your yard.
Of course if it turns out that the thrill of seeing faint fuzzies in the sky does not give you the satisfaction you were hoping for the binoculars can always be used for checking the wildlife in your backyard - or getting an up close look at the horse you're betting on in the fourth race at Pimlico. 😏
