What sort of magnification telescope is regarded as good? I want something better then the cheapy argos ones?
Answers:
Magnification is not the thing to go for. Aperture, optical perfection and mechanical sturdiness are the important things to look for.
Aperture is the diameter of the main lens or mirror, and bigger is better. That is why professional telescopes are so big. Most serious amateurs use 8 inch or larger telescopes these days.
Optical perfection determines the clarity if the image. In theory, with prefect optics, the amount of detail that can be seen is limited only by the aperture. If there are any imperfections in the optics, then less detail can be seen. For a perfect telescope, magnification of 50 power for each inch of aperture will show all the detail that the telescope could ever reveal. Any higher magnification just makes the image blurry. Like taking a small image from the web and using the zoom function in paint to enlarge it.
Mechanical sturdiness is often overlooked. No matter how perfect the optics are, if the telescope cannot he held steady and in perfect alignment, it will pe a pain to use.
You can buy some very good ones on Ebay. Happy star hunting. To see the best stars come here to France, no light polution, so lovely stars, milky ways, satelites etc
Size matters.
The interesting objects in space are often rather large. but very dim. So, light gathering ability is far more important than magnification- which is easily changed by switching eyepieces.
just like in sex- 8 inches is a good start, but bigger is (nearly) always better.
It doesn't matter how much you magnify a star, or how big your telescope- they all still just look like points of light.
Magnification is not the be-all and end-all. You're right in thinking that the cheapy Argos one's aren't worth the money, here's why: the brightness of the image is dependent on resolving power not magnification. Resolving power is in turn dependent on aperture.
If you are on a tight budget you might be better off with binoculars which have the advantage over high power telescopes that they show a large field, ie. you see more of the sky. Many interesting objects are visible in binoculars - go for 7x50s 10x50s with a tripod adapter to hold them steady. The first number is maginification, the second aperture in millimeters. 12x50s and bigger absolutely require a mounting of some sort to hold them steady, but some comet hunters swear by them.
If you do go the telescope route be willing to spend around £300 to get something really worthwhile. There are different configurations around this price that have their pros and cons. For pure aperture though a Dobsonian-Newtonian takes some beating whereas a Maksutov-Cassegrain is very compact so can be transported easily. If money is no object you could go for something like the Meade ETX-90, a very popular model that has an onboard computer that will automatically go to which ever object you choose from a database.
As for stockists I don't know where abouts you were but I had good service from here: http://www.sussex-astronomy-centre.co.uk. and would recommend them.
Forget magnification. Any telescope can be made to go pretty much any magnification with the right eyepieces.
The main determinant of performance is aperture - the size of the lens or mirror that gathers light. This will determine how bright and detailed the images are, and determine the maximum magnification that is still bright and sharp enough to be generally useful.
A 6 or 8inch (150mm to 200mm) dobsonian mounted reflector is the usual beginner's scope recommendation. It's not perfect for everyone, but it's a good place to start researching.
As an example of why magnification isn't that important for many purposes: The Galaxy M33 appears larger than the moon. M31, The Andromeda Galaxy, appears about 6 times larger than the moon! The reason they aren't as obvious as the moon is because they are so dim - not because they are so small. You don't need high magnification to see them well - you need to increase the brightness!
Magnification is not what you should be looking for. Lense/Mirror diameter to let in more light (to see dimmer objects in the sky) AND quality (so the images you see are sharp and clear and not multicolored due to lense misalignment or poor workmanship/manufacture.)
don't worry about mag, you can change that with a new eye piece, get something with a solid tripod, a large objective mirror or lens depending on what you prefer. the larger this is the better your resolution will be, this is good because if you magnify a blur, its still a blur
It depends on what you want to look at. If it is the moon a good pair of bino's will be good enough.
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