Slashdot Mirror
Amateur Astronomer Bruce Berger Talks About Meteors and Telescopes (Video)
Bruce Berger is an IT
guy, but he's also an amateur astronomer who takes at least one aspect
of astronomy more seriously than most sky-watchers. Not
content with what he could buy when he first wanted a telescope of his
own, Berger set out to make one -- it turned out so well, he says
he'll never part with it, and he's made several others since, and
taught many other people to do the same. In this pursuit, he's also
been a long-time member of the Amateur
Telescope Makers of Boston, including a stint as the group's
president. (Berger's custom license plate reads "SCPMKR.") In the video
below, though, I caught up with him in Maine between evenings watching
this year's spectacular Perseid showers (and without any of his
home-built scopes to hand), to give some insight about what would-be
skywatchers should consider in looking at scopes. It's surprising just
how good today's telescopes are for the money, but it's easy to be
ripped off, too, or at least disappointed. (And besides avoiding
department store junk, building your own is still Bruce's strongest
advice.) Ed note: This Video is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 will run tomorrow.
I've had two telescopes, not including binoculars and cheapo dime-store stuff. My first scope was 4 1/4" f10 Newtonian. Bulky to haul out with the steel mount, but a lot of fun. I was enthusiastic enough in my teens to haul it out when there was snow on the ground. Cold Winter nights had the clearest air in Northern Virginia, even if you didn't have the spectacle of the Summer Milky Way.
When I went to school I traded it in for the compact backpack scope that Edmund was selling at the time. This baby was also Newtonian, but had a rounded body and just a little curved metal plate for a mount. I didn't miss the clock drive; but the quality of the optics was a huge step down. I ended up taking it back because of that.
I learned the hard way that short-focus optics are apparently harder to grind. In order to get the compact size with the same aperture they were using short focal length. Star discs had noticeable distortion, which bothered me.
I wonder how well these Dobsonian "light buckets" do in that regard. If you are shooting long exposures of nebulae or just taking joy at being able to see a spiral arm or two in some galaxy, it's not a problem. I think it would bother me based on past experience though.
Of course you can get the best of both worlds with the Schmidt-Cassegrain design; but they were at least 5X the cost back then. I haven't priced them in years. I lost interest in college and never got back into stargazing.
Very true, but at the same time, while "size matters" is true in astronomy, I also often see amateur astronomers fall for this thing and think that they should invest in a large "first scope", often with a large aperture. Most of the times these are Newtons, sometimes if money ain't a problem even larger Schmidt-Cassegrains.
;)
While with the SCs the problem is not that important as nearly all of them have the same aperture of f/10, with faster newtons people often are sold a large telescope because it is easier and "more impressive" to move the big iron than to instruct them that with the bigger diameter and - most of the time - faster aperture, they need expensive eyepieves. But eyepieces are irrelevant for most new-comers. They know they need them, but they care more about "that big, big tube of science" and the mount.
My advice: always consult one or two respected forums as well as your local astro shop. Size definitely matters in astronomy, but it always increases the need for higher quality "boring" stuff like eyepieces, and even mounts. I have seen many shops selling optical tube assemblies (the optical part of a telescope system) with mounts that couldn't handle them and POS eyepieces. So the very first time you look through your telescope, everytime your nose touches the eyepiece, the thing starts to shiver for ten seconds, every blast of air makes it impossible to observer something.
Allthough I am not a fan of "buying twice", I would advice most people to start with a dobson. Most of the time the aperture is small enough so that they can use decent Plössl eyepieces, the "mount" is solid enough to have fun, and they have to start manually without GoTo. If the moon, some planets and some easily observable objects catch their interest, then it is time to think about going bigger, and they know what questions to ask to get a solid recommendation for the next scope.
Better than surfing the night sky without knowing where you are simply by pressing buttons, looking for those purple/red nebulars and finding out that M31 is a dissapointment you can't get enough off