| Home | Articles | Guide to Observing | Tour of the Constellations | Book Reviews |
It's almost inevitable. One day you will be wistfully looking at photographs of the Andromeda galaxy or some brightly-colored nebula. Perhaps you will be staring at Mars through your binoculars, just unable to make out some tantalizing details on its surface. You have reached the limit of your bare eyes or even a fine pair of binoculars; you need a telescope.
Through a telescope you will be able to see not only the great seas of the Moon and its largest craters, but small craters, rills and canyons. The rings of Saturn, belts and zones of Jupiter, galaxies and distant nebulae may all be seen with the assistance of a telescope. Of course, a telescope is not very useful for identifying constellations. It is designed to zoom in on a small area of the sky. The feeling of watching something through a telescope is less that of seeing some distant object being enlarged and more like being transported closer to the object.
While using binoculars or simply your eyes, there is always some awareness of the surroundings and horizon. Searching for a faint object with a telescope is quite a different experience. Your universe becomes whatever is within the eyepiece. If this seems like a limited world, remember that you are looking at the stars. They still appear as points of light, but enveloped with a sense of nearness. Your field of vision contains a few stars, possibly too dim to be seen with the naked eye. Most likely you are the only one seeing them at that moment. You are alone with those stars, they're yours.
I found that any fool could make a telescope in his own kitchen,
for a few dollars and a couple of weeks' work.
Arthur C. Clark - Saturn Rising