Night Vision - Part 1

I was bitten by the astronomy bug early last September. My son, Simon, who is almost 7, has been more or less obsessed with the planets and stars for several years now and I've always loved the topic as well, but it wasn't until last September that I really began wanting to get us a family telescope. Because of Simon's interest we attended a "Family Astronomy Night" at a Metro Park about an hour away (and somewhat farther from the glaring Detroit area light pollution.) It was a beautiful night that night, but there was a huge crowd (which I found out later numbered between 4,000 and 5,000 people). This meant that we didn't get a chance to look through many telescopes because the lines were so long.

However, we did get to look through some large, good quality telescopes at the moon and Jupiter and I have to say that seeing Jupiter is what really hooked me. It's hard to describe. For years I've known enough about the general layout of the planets and constellations to differentiate between Jupiter & Venus and the stars, although I didn't quite know enough to tell the difference between Jupiter & Venus with the naked eye (which I've since figured out, more or less).

However, I've never looked through a good telescope before and I never knew how much you could see about Jupiter if you just stood on the ground and looked at it through a good scope. So, I wasn't expecting much that night when I leaned over and peered through the eyepiece of a big Dobsonian scope. What I did see, however, well... it stunned me. I could see the bands of horizontal color. I could see the great red spot. And, most of all, I could see the 4 Galilean moons Io, Europe, Ganymede and Callisto. I mean, I knew that Galileo saw the 4 main moons hundreds of years ago with his little telescope, but seeing it yourself is different. It sounds silly, but seeing that was a bit of a transformative experience. It was hauntingly beautiful.

Here's what it looked like (but seeing a picture of it is not quite the same as seeing it with your own eyes).

Nothing in space looks as good through a telescope as it does in one of those Hubble Space Telescope pictures you see, but for me seeing this blurry little image with no more technology between me and it than a mirror and the lens of an eyepiece brought the universe closer than it was before.

The very next day I began researching telescopes. I've been reading about them online every day for the past 5 months. I've learned the difference between Galilean refractors, Newtonian reflectors and Schmidt-Cassegrain models. I've learned what focal length and focal ratios are and the difference between an f/5 and an f/15 scope and how that will affect the image you see. I've learned the difference between various sized eyepieces and how to calculate the magnification power of a scope by dividing its focal length by the focal length of the eyepiece.

Most importantly, I learned that no one scope excels at allowing you to see the moon, planets, star clusters, nebulae and other galaxies. Over time I discovered what I wanted out of a telescope and a couple of days ago I finally bought one. It should arrive in a week or so

Later I'll describe what my criteria were for our new family scope and which one I chose. Still later I hope to describe our attempts to find hidden treasures in the night sky. That's enough for now, though.