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

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?

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 ;)