State Of The Art Telescopy

This compact and very serious telescope is the next step up from “practicing” at astronomy. I could not leave out this amazingly accurate and easy-to-use piece from any telescope list, even if it costs what it offers. In this case, I think we get value for value. The images and easy alignment aids of this piece of telescopic art is phenomenal. For the serious astronomer, this item is something one dreams about as a kid. What may be most remarkable about it, however, is how much easier it becomes to locate what we’re searching for. This one also lets us get far deeper out into the Universe itself.

The Nexstar 8 SE upholds Celestron’s reputation for quality optics. When you look at Jupiter, the pale orange color of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot is visible, and you can even be able to identify the polar caps and spot dust storms on the planet Mars. Here is a great view of Jupiter through this telescope:

This one is for real. It also has automatic aligning features based on current date and time plus a database of over 40,000 celestial objects. It is sturdy, compact and has the brain of a true astronomical wizard inside its chip. This is a truly wonderful item and a goal, if nothing else, for any serious home astronomer.

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The Search For The Perfect Starter Telescope

Finding the perfect starter telescope involves many things, foremost of which for most of us is price. This telescope goes for a bit less than $100 and represents what I consider the best buy in the “starter” telescope range. It has a few plastic parts, notably the dials, but all-in-all, it offers some fabulous viewing at a great magnification. Nice rig here.

The Celestron 21045 offers a 4.5 inch reflecting mirror and gathers three times more starlight than popular 60mm refractors. The Powerseeker package includes two eyepieces (K20 and SR4), a plastic 3x barlow, and a lightweight equatorial mount. The Tripod is an excellent composition and quite steady. At 30 pounds, it is a nice and serious piece of star-gazing equipment. In my experience, it is hard to find units offering this much power for under $100. Using the K20 eyepiece included as standard equipment, about 45x magnification, it’s easy to see the Andromeda Galaxy and its smaller satellite galaxy M32. That’s some good power!

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Astronomical Learning Gizmo

This little gizmo is an ultra attractive learning tool that does not even need the night sky to learn with, although it certainly helps. One can tour the sky with its help and see the realities he reads about during the day. It’s like a hand-held Gameboy, full of amazing information and correct placements of planets and constellations based on the current date and time. Kids can switch modes to see the scribed in pictures of the mythological beasts and personages who populate the sky and whom the constellations were named for.

Self-illuminated, it is a small planesphere complete with light and sound. An audio presentaion heklps the viewer navigate the machine, leading to an understanding of what’s going on up there. It has a glow in the dark compass and a cool back lit LCD clock display. I really like this little thing and I suspect it could be a real educational attention grabber.

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A ReallyGreat Starter Book

This cute little book proves the adage that something does not have to be expensive to be effective. Inside, Terence Dickinson covers all the problems beginners face, starting with the fact that the night sky does not look the way a modern city-dweller expects. He discusses light pollution, how to choose binoculars and telescopes, how to pronounce the names of stars and constellations, telescope mounts, averted vision, and why the harvest moon looks especially bright. There are some great pictures using the latest technologies and some very detailed looks at the constellations and some fabulous pictures taken by amateurs as well. While this is not a compendium of thoroughness, it has an immense amount of information about how to locate the constellations and their names. The pictures are breath-taking and the information is very detailed.

Youngsters should get something from browsing this, leading to a more informed child about the heavens around him or her.

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