Equipment

While big-aperture reflectors have their place for visual observing and astro-imaging, it’s hard to beat the view through a good apochromatic or ED refractor. The pinpoint stars, the superb contrast, and relative ease of use make this scopes extremely popular among amateur astronomers.

But what is the best refractor? Or to put it a different way, if you could choose only one refractor, which would it be? For me, it’s my Tele Vue 85mm – what the late Al Nagler called the ‘goldilocks’ telescope because it’s just right for nearly everything. In the video above, Ed Ting takes a personal view of which refractor he would choose if he could have only one (hint – it’s made in Japan).

 

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Nico Carver visits the ZWO factory and offices in Suzhou, China and speaks with founder Sam Wen about the development of some of ZWO’s most innovative products. This short video offers a insightful glimpse into the process of conception, design, and development of successful new products – an art in itself. And it gives us a peek over the horizon of the direction of how compact, ‘smart’ imaging telescopes will influence the future of amateur astronomy. In my view, Sam Wen and his team have done more to get people involved with hands-on astronomy than anyone in the past two or three decades. They have done super work.

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Sometime in 1955, Mr. David Coffeen of New Orleans, Louisiana came up with $75. In today’s currency, that’s about $700, a respectable sum. And what did Mr. Coffeen do with his hard-earned savings?

He purchased a telescope.

Which telescope? A Unitron altazimuth refractor with an aperture of just 40mm, less than that of most finder scopes today. It came with three eyepieces, a star diagonal, and a wooden storage case, because it was an honest astronomical instrument.

Mr. Coffeen used his telescope from atop his modest trailer home. There was a lot to see with that 40mm scope: loads of lunar detail, the rings of Saturn, the Galilean moons of Jupiter and a couple of belts, hundreds of double stars, many of the Messier objects, and a lot more [Read more…] about An Ode to Small Telescopes

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