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    Which Telescope Type Is Best For Beginners

    2. October 2008 – 20:46

    Are you amongst the millions of people who have a keen interest in astronomy? Well, if the answer is yes and you want to be able to do astronomy research almost like the professionals, then it is high time that you buy a telescope. A telescope can be defined as an instrument which enables the viewer to view distant objects closely and clearly. For beginners, choosing the right type of telescope can be a big headache. To clear all your confusion and doubts there is an information guide for you - telescopes for beginners.

    Broadly spoken, there are three categories of telescopes determined by their optical design - namely: the refractor, the reflector, and the catadioptric. Given below is a brief insight into each of these types to aid you in the selection of your telescope for beginners.

    The Refractors
    The Refractors are easily distinguishable owing to their long design. They are basically made up of a long tube that holds a large lens in the front, known as the objective lens. The objective lens enables light to pass through it and concentrate it at the back end, where it passes through the eye-piece, enabling the viewer to get a clear picture. The aperture depends upon the size of the objective glass. Refractor type telescopes are recommended as telescope for beginners.

    The Reflectors
    The size of objective lenses can not be increased beyond a certain limit. It was due to this problem that reflector telescopes were designed; these telescopes enable concentration of light at a point using large convex reflectors. Isaac Newton was first to use reflector telescope, that is why this type of telescope is often referred to as Newtonian telescope.

    Dobsonian Telescopes
    A special type of Newtonian telescope is the Dobsonian, it is particularly popular amongst amateur astronomers. Some reasons for that are the very good performance regarding to watching the planets.

    The Catadioptric
    Catadioptrics are also known as compound telescopes as they combine features of both reflector and refractor telescopes. Light first passes through a large, clear lens, called the corrector plate, which tweaks it ever so slightly before reflecting off the primary mirror at the back of the tube.

    As already mentioned refractor telescopes are often recommended as telescopes for beginners. They are very easy to install and can provide a clear view of the sun(with filters, of course as you might hurt your eyes!), moon and stars. At the same time they are economically priced and provide a good beginning knowledge to its user. Once you are comfortable using these telescopes you can upgrade to reflector telescopes and ultimately to catadioptric ones.

    There are many manufacturers available in the market nowadays. Some of the most reputed are Meade telescopes, Galileo telescopes and Celestron telescopes. Celestron telescopes is considered an ideal manufacturer for telescopes for beginners by many. They do not only provide high performance but also a user-friendly designing. The Galileo telescopes are for medium-level users as they requires some adjustment and a professional touch in installation.

    To conclude off it is largely dependent upon the requirements of the users. But as telescopes for beginners, a simple refractive telescope can help you gain first-hand knowledge of telescopes and you can upgrade it later to reflective and compound telescopes which require a good deal of knowledge to work with.

    Posted in Telescopes | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

    How To Read A Star Chart.

    10. August 2008 – 21:58

    Star charts are ideal for those who have just made star-gazing as their hobby and want to go a step ahead in identifying different constellations with the naked eye. So if you are also interested in star-gazing at night time then star charts can take your interest to a new level of excitement.

    A star chart is a map of the night that enables you to locate stars, celestial bodies, other planets and different patters of stars called constellations. Star charts are very easy to use. The first thing that needs to be done is to find a dark place away from any source of light so that you can have a clear view of sky. After a small amount of time your eyes will get used to the darkness and will be able to spot stars clearly. You can also use a pair of binoculars to get into more details.

    Star charts can be obtained from every better bookstore. Nowadays some websites, including lookatstars.com are also providing such charts. Now when using a star chart be sure that you have a correct map in accordance with your location and date. Generally star charts are different for Northern and Southern hemispheres.

    Now when you made sure that the chart is fine for you just concentrate on the compass provided (most of the time at the right-bottom end) on the map. Now to start off you star-gazing activity, you need to rotate the star chart in such a way that the direction of the compass of the star chart direction appears along the bottom of the map when you face that particular direction.

    After adjusting the compass, hold your map high above your head and the center of the map is the place directly over you head. Now check for all the constellations and celestial bodies the map provides you with and try to locate them. One golden rule of interpreting star charts is that the celestial body which is half way through the boundary and center of the map is bound to be located in between the center and horizon of space.

    These star maps can also be used at locations up or down of up to 15° without any errors that lead to problems. When you are using the star chart for the first time you will also note the reversed direction in East and West directions on the compass, this is due to the fact that you are looking away from the Earth into the space as compared to other geographic maps where you look into the Earth from space. The difference in the area of observation causes the swap of directions. However North and South directions are the same.

    The online availability of some charts makes them easy to obtain, but those maps may be only for educational purposes and may not be that exact. Surely star charts can change the altogether experience of star gazing and once you get used to it you can even locate stars, constellations and celestial bodies without it. But initially it will surely provide you with lots of information about heavenly bodies and constellations.

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    Comparison Between Google Sky And Microsoft World Wide Telescope

    6. August 2008 – 20:11

    Google Sky was introduced in 2007 as a free service of Google Earth. Earlier Google Earth was designed for viewing landscapes of Earth, but now the Californian enterprise has taken it a step ahead to enable its users to view the outer space. Just imagine the most sought after galaxies - Milky Way, Andromeda, and Nebulas are just a click way.

    Google Sky is also known to provide its users with state of art technologies; one of them is the Sky-modality. Using Sky-modality you can select from a whooping 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies. Google sky uses approximately a million pictures coming through various researches and blends them together to create a perfect 3-D effect.

    The World Wide Telescope was introduced by Microsoft recently to give Google Sky some competition. And to an extent it has been successful in doing so; the Microsoft World Wide Telescope has superior graphics and effects and gives a virtual feeling of traveling through the space. Word Wide Telescope takes a picture of a galaxy and later enables its users to zoom into it, creating a virtual reality of going through the space and while you are on your space cruise you can click on any star to see its information. The project is inspirational to both kids and adults, the kids can learn about space in a fun way while the older ones can get information easily.

    The first feature that enables Microsoft World Wide Telescope to score over Google Sky is its interface. Microsoft World Wide Telescope has a very slick interface. The interface enables the user to switch over from places in space very easily. Secondly World Wide Telescope is capable of switching over databases very easily, which provides better graphics and effects over Google Sky. Google Sky has some limitations as it is an extension of Google Earth; it is not capable of handling poles. On the other hand, Microsoft World Wide Telescope is not built on axis of earth so it can provide perfect view of poles, in fact perfect view of any place for that matter.

    However the above things do not mean that Microsoft World Wide Telescope is globally superior to Google Sky. Some of the features that make Google Sky better are that Microsoft World Wide Telescope runs only on the Microsoft Windows platform. That means no Mac OS X and no Linux. It has also been seen that Microsoft World Wide Telescope requires graphics cards and high end personal computers to enable smooth inflow of graphics.

    One of the biggest accomplishments of Google Earth is that it is capable of running over all the three operating systems, i.e.  Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is also capable of running over a large range of personal computers which do not have dedicated graphics cards owing to efficient design.

    Google sky has many users; in fact there are over 350 million installation counts according to Google. It also provides its users to add content to its ever increasing database. Its features like planetary orrey, real-time horizon, lunar eclipse predictor, and other’s makes it favorite amongst people around the world. Whereas the recent launch of Microsoft World Wide Telescope is prone to face difficulties. The major difficulty can be to get users swap their preferences from Google Sky to Microsoft World Wide Telescope.

    Google Sky is mainly powered by the images taken from the Hubble telescope whereas Microsoft World Wide Telescope includes a lot more than a few images from a single source; it is powered by images from NASA’s great fleet of space-borne telescopes and satellites. In addition to these, earth-bound observatories are also feeding Microsoft World Wide Telescope’s database for superior quality imaging. The World Wide Telescope offers more coverage of the universe and addition of rich data sets enables it to provide a more real virtual space travel. It also boasts of a superior user-friendly interface and unparalleled graphics.

    The major setback of Google Sky is its poor styling and template design which dates back to 90’s, when it was launched. The frequent HTML popups can also be a big setback. Google Sky requires a minute check to apply new Aperture 2 photo management software, making it more suitable for 2D viewing, but if you are looking for seamless tour through the cosmos then Microsoft World Wide Telescope should be the right choice for you.

    The World Wide Telescope is projected to get direct imaging from the future Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, partially owned by the owner of Microsoft, Bill Gates. The 8.4 meter telescope is to be built in Chile’s Atacama Desert by the year 2014. The telescope will have a 3-billion pixel digital camera to enable virtual surfing to new depths of space with billions of colored images every week.

    In reply of this Google Sky has also joined MIT scientists who are designing a satellite based-observatory - The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is expected to provide survey of entire space. Google is funding the powerful cameras that will be required to take images in this project.

    The Microsoft World Wide Telescope was released as a tribute to Jim Gray, a Microsoft researcher who went missing off the California coast while he was researching to organize the large number of images and data being fed to the Microsoft World Wide Telescope.

    Surely Microsoft World Wide Telescope can be a big risk to established customer-reputation of Google Sky as it has some unique features like enabling people to create their own space tours, superior graphics providing a great 3D effect, high level of detailing owing to weekly large updates of data and images, a user-interface interface, and last but the most important due to the Microsoft brand. It is a high time for Google to fasten its belt and give a good upgrade to Google Sky to upkeep its established reputation of providing an unparallel quality to compete with an all–geared Microsoft World Wide Telescope service.

    Posted in Astronomy Software, Google Sky | Tagged , | Comments (0)