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.

Comments

2013 Leonids?

[turkeydance]

really? already?

Re:2013 Leonids?

[schneidafunk]

Leonids happens in November (15th-20th to be exact).
Perseid peeked a few days ago.

Re:2013 Leonids?

[frovingslosh]

Yea, my thought exactly. Us amateurs have to wait until November for them. But I'm really not sure if they got the name wrong, or if this is just very dated and "this year's" refers to something that happened last year. Sloppy reporting either way, makes me not trust anything else that it might say.

So... what does his license plate mean?

[Ambvai]

So... what does his license plate mean? I assume it's related to being in the ATMoB since the snippet comes right after, but what's the [SCP]-Maker supposed to mean?

He makes Special Containment Procedures to Secure, Contain and Protect makers?

Re:Check out these

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Telescope size

[wbr1]

For those that are interested here is a little more info. As you may know, the larger the diameter of the telescope, the more light gathering power it has. Similar to a bucket catching rain, the wider the bucket the more it catches.

Refractors have two main disadvantages, one, the larger the aperture, the thicker the lens has to be as well, making the lense heavy. IIRC it also requires longer and longer tubes to focus the light.

A reflector mirror on the other hand can be much shorter for the aperture size and the mirror can be lighter than a similarly sized lens, as it only needs to be a reflective film or coating on a lighter substrate, as long as it has minimal imperfections.

Really good and large mirrors are expensive though. Here is a place that will sell you good mirrors if you want to make your own. http://zambutomirrors.com/mirrors.html

Re:Telescope size

[tuo42]

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 ;)

Re:Telescope size

[thegarbz]

While size matters, the way the telescope is used matters even more.

The last Astronomy party I attended featured a spectacular 28" Dobsonian scope built by a company called poetically "Size Does Matter". The Eastern Veil looked great through it. I then went back to my small 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain bolted a camera to the back, pointed it to the Eastern Veil and took a 2 hour photo that looks much better than anything I could see through the telescope 10 times the cost of mine.

My suggestion to anyone who wants to get into astronomy is forget the visual stuff, spend money on an equatorial mount a basic telescope and a decent camera and the universe will open up even more for you.