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**offemyJuccete** · 10-21-2011, 12:07 AM

If you want to see moons & planets as opposed to nebulae and distant galaxy stars then you honestly would probably benefit from a really good pair of binoculars.

If you would rather view deep space objects then the diameter of the mirror is the main thing to spend money on.
Magnification is bullshit if you cannot gather a lot of light.
Like a very crap bitmap image... magnification just makes the pixels bigger but the picture is still crappy.
The wider the diameter of the mirror or scope the more light in can allow into it which gives you more "pixels" as it were to be magnified.

As someone already mentionned though if you aren't a major astronomy buff then don't go ape **** on a huge scope expecting to see all the gloriously coloured nebulae pictures as shown by Hubble for example. All those images are post-edited to display the densities of certain elements or chemicals or even temperatures or radio waves etc but definately not seen by the naked eye.

I would simply suggest you decide on what you want to view in the heavens and then price up a scope based on that. If you plan on spending less than £300 just get a really good pair of binoculars instead.

10-21-2011, 12:07 AM	#20
offemyJuccete Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 426 Senior Member	If you want to see moons & planets as opposed to nebulae and distant galaxy stars then you honestly would probably benefit from a really good pair of binoculars. If you would rather view deep space objects then the diameter of the mirror is the main thing to spend money on. Magnification is bullshit if you cannot gather a lot of light. Like a very crap bitmap image... magnification just makes the pixels bigger but the picture is still crappy. The wider the diameter of the mirror or scope the more light in can allow into it which gives you more "pixels" as it were to be magnified. As someone already mentionned though if you aren't a major astronomy buff then don't go ape **** on a huge scope expecting to see all the gloriously coloured nebulae pictures as shown by Hubble for example. All those images are post-edited to display the densities of certain elements or chemicals or even temperatures or radio waves etc but definately not seen by the naked eye. I would simply suggest you decide on what you want to view in the heavens and then price up a scope based on that. If you plan on spending less than £300 just get a really good pair of binoculars instead.
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