Advise to buy a telescope

I want to see Stars and Galaxies,
what kind of telescope is good to see from the ground of my yard?
My budget is only USD 200.

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This looks like a good buy. 127mm is a nice size newtonial for this price and celestron is reputal.

 

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My wife's late husband was a project manager and controller for the Hubble Space Telescope. The hobby he had started at home included grinding his own lenses, and he had a complete library of books related to building telescopes and characterizing how they performed. So in our basement we have this 18 inch Dobsonian design reflector telescope which has been vacated and will eventually go to one of my stepsons. But I've also built a few telescopes (and also microscopes) myself.

There are two categories of telescope: reflector and refractor. Of the two types of telescope, the reflector, which uses a mirror for the objective instead of a lens, will suffer less optical path (light) loss than with a refractor. This is important to consider if it is your intention to view the very, very faint light from distant galaxies.

Light pollution in your area can wash out any chance of your viewing such faint objects, and I'm not just talking about light from cities. A full moon anywhere in the sky at night scatters in all directions and can wash out your ability to see finer details of faint objects like galaxies. Serious galactic astronomy is done under ideal conditions, and that means when there is a new moon, and also far away from the light from neighbor's houses or big cities.

The magnifying power of a telescope depends on the optical path distance between the objective lens and the eyepiece, but the light collecting power is more closely related to the diameter of the objective. A lot of amateur astronomers will make the mistake of choosing higher magnification over light collection. There is a trade-off to be made.

Mr Hubble (introduced above) died of Leukemia in 2003, but the Dobsonian telescope he left to his family probably didn't cost much more than about $200 USD to produce, because he ground his own lenses. If you decide to go this route, please have a care. Fine silica dust produced when grinding telescope objective mirrors can be hazardous to your health. So can many industrial strength solvents used as cutting fluids, which I am told, were plentiful here when his brother-in-law came by to dispose of the unused parts of his telescope production facility.

It seemed a bit strange to me, when I was told parts of this story, that someone working that closely with the HST, the finest astronomical instrument the world has yet produced, would continue to do backyard amateur astronomy in his spare time. The HST images he helped bring to the world will likely never be forgotten, even after the 10 year mission of the James Webb telescope, slated to be launched in 2018. This one will be an infrared telescope with a 18 piece interlocking (mosaic) mirror, each mirror shape individually adjustable in microns. The super advanced heat shield of the telescope to keep the limited liquid helium supply cool will unfortunately block most of the sunlight from getting to the solar panels needed to power the telemetry involved, so the device will orbit one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points in something of an eccentric manner. The images obtained from the IRAS satellite were very intriguing, but if this mission works, the HST will finally be 1-upped. The NASA engineer who helped design the telescope and told us about it was very excited about the possibilities.

Good luck with your backyard astronomy.

 

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Why couldn't they turn the solar panels towards the sun and use them as the heat shield or at least part of it?

 

Don't, they are all garbage, unless you spend $500,000,000.00 or so dollars. The best telescope, is the internet.

 

Uninformed rubbish.

 

You will need to spend a bit more then that for a really good telescope, but it does depend on exactly how far into this you want to proceed and how serious you take it.
This may help.....
http://www.backyardastronomy.com/Backyard_Astronomy/The_Best_Beginner_Telescopes.html

PS: My second home is in Fiji. On one of my many trips there long ago, I was laying back on a remote beach with my trusty 7x50's binoculars. I was actually focusing on Jupiter and to my great joy actually observed three of the Galileon Satellites made famous of course by Galileo.
So yes most definitley, even a $200 'scope can reveal stunning views of the heavens, depending of course on what you want to achieve from this venture.
I recommend you go ahead.

 

What telescope would you recommend, this person buy to get this image? http://images.nationalgeographic.co.../space92-hubble-anniversary_19582_600x450.jpg

 

Stop posting ignorance. Many backyard 'scopes are well worth there while and reveal quite detailed images of our solar system, which is what the average backyard 'scope is for.
The image you post to mislead, is the Eagle nebula I think, and not of this solar system but many thousands of light years distant.

 

You neglected to mention a model of telescope, for the poster to buy.

 

a telescope will not be your only concern.
you will also need a suitable mount and some sort of drive for it.

 

Depending upon, how much ambient light you have at your location, drastically degrades (more light) or improves (less light) the image. Which is why telescopes are built in isolated places

 

I gave him a link> The more he can spend, obviously the better the 'scope.


PS: for Saint.
You probably realise that generally most professional large 'scopes are built away from city lights.
Light pollution should be considered when buying a 'scope.

 

Thanks for posting the light pollution comment after I informed you of it.

 

You are also delusional I see.

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It's nice though to actually see you post something factual and not driven by any stupid religious agenda.
I have a Celestron NexStar 8 SE 'scope
It's worth in excess of a $1000

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...-tgegO&usg=AFQjCNHg72fckTQMudIQLFMaY8yn731blg

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...-tgegO&usg=AFQjCNE_Jmrx-TWIxcyceqyxki5LMraTTg


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...-tgegO&usg=AFQjCNEOCwAcaNogL4tHsWlUf_JzatjS6A

Here are three telescopes that you can view through for free online. There are more if you would look.

 

I can access images, captured by billions of dollars worth of telescopes on the internet.

In cloudy weather, and in the daytime as well. Seriously, this makes the images from a backyard reflector pale by comparison.

Excellent...................!

 

Some people like doing and viewing science for themselves, and are inspired by some of the amazing pictures we do see.

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But your point is?

 

The point is, that we are all used to the images that we have seen thru billion dollar machines. Looking thru a backyard telescope, is like listening to music on a wind up victrolla.

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Or more to the point, it can help lay people like myself, observe the realities of the Universe we belong to, the logic that applies to it being the ultimate free lunch, and the fact that we do not need any deity to explain the obvious wonders that surround us.