A Telescope Tour

telescopes-testing-lowres-3712

For the past few days, I’ve done a lot of talking about differences between types of telescopes and mounting systems. On occasion, I’ve mentioned some of their parts, though I haven’t focused on that.

Today, I will.

This post is meant to be a brief overview of differences between telescopes and their parts. If you want some more in-depth explanations, I’ll link back to those I’ve already written.

In the image above, you see just a few different examples of telescopes. And just in this image, they range far and wide. Most stand on tripods, but some don’t. I can see two different telescope shapes. Some have the eyepiece in different places.

There are more variations of telescopes than are shown here.

So climb on board…I’m about to take you on a telescope tour!

Continue reading

Improved Telescope Mounting

mount.jpg

So, any idea what this handy-dandy thing is?

Okay, so maybe I sort of gave it away in the post title…

I know what you’re about to say next. Why are we looking at a mount? What’s so special about a mount—isn’t the telescope itself more important?

And the fact is…I know where you’re going with that. The telescope is important, and without it, the mount would have no purpose. But without the mount, the telescope would be lost—it would have power, but nothing to do.

How’s that work?

Continue reading