Longer telescopes with wider apertures will produce crisper images, but they'll be more expensive. The length of the telescope also affects your viewing experience. ![]() "You're looking through the eyepiece at this focal plane, and that's how you see the image." "You can think of an eyepiece like a little mini microscope, Fried said. ![]() The James Webb telescope's first stunning cosmic images are here A shorter focal length does the opposite - it increases the field of view, which is ideal for looking at galaxies and other large deep space objects that are dimmer and further away. A longer focal length will limit the field of view but increase the magnification (Opens in a new tab), which is good for looking at planets and the moon. The focal length of the eyepiece determines the magnification that you get. Instead, it brings the light to a focal plane, which can then be looked at through a telescope's eyepiece. So, the bigger the telescope in aperture, the greater the light gathering, and that equates to being able to see fainter objects and things that are farther away as well, typically."įried noted that a telescope doesn't actually magnify. "The diameter and the size of the aperture, the opening of the telescope, is determines how much light it will gather. "What a telescope does, is it gathers light," Fried posited. We tapped Fried's 40 years of stargazing experience to learn everything you need to know before bringing home your own telescope. Fried is also a longtime member and former board member of the Custer Institute (Opens in a new tab), as well as a member of the Astronomical Society of Long Island (Opens in a new tab), the Amateur Observers Society of New York (Opens in a new tab), the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers (Opens in a new tab) and the Westchester Amateur Astronomers (Opens in a new tab)- so he's very involved in astronomy and knows what makes a good telescope. We chatted with Bart Fried, the Executive Vice President of the Amateur Astronomers Association in New York City (Opens in a new tab), and founder and past president of the Antique Telescope Society (Opens in a new tab). To get some guidance on how telescopes work, what types of telescopes there are, and how to shop for one, we turned to the experts. It's easy to drop a few thousand dollars on some of the higher-tech models, but that isn't always the case. Whether you're a beginner stargazer or a seasoned astronomer, there are a lot of telescopes and telescope accessories on the market. ![]() From stars to planets to galaxies, there's a whole lot out there beyond our little floating rock - and a telescope is the best way to view the heavens. There's nothing that will give you an existential crisis (or make you appreciate your life) more than taking a gander at space.
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