OpticsBlog – Thoughts and reviews of binoculars, telescopes, scopes, sights, and much more - birdwatching, astronomy, target shooting - pretty much anything related to optics, nature, and life!

When it comes to any kind of observing, such as astronomy, birding, hunting, with any kind of instrument, such as a binocular, spotting scope or telescope, one basic truth holds true. If you know what to expect when you look, you will see more and you will need less in the way of optical equipment to see it. It's called experience and it is just as big a factor as the binocular, spotting scope or telescope you are using. I've seen this, perhaps, in astronomy, more than any other type of observing. I have often located an object in the eyepiece and have invited a beginner to look through the eyepiece, only for them to tell me that can't see anything, even though the object seems to be jumping right out of the eyepiece for me. Now, if a person could bottle that kind of experience and sell it, us old-timers would be rich.

Modern digital cameras have many features. In fact, today's digital cameras have more features and more menu choices than any one photographer can use and, it's also safe to say, the average photographer just sets things on full automatic, frames the pic and fires away. That's fine, if are not inclined to learn the basics as to aperture, depth of field, shutter speed, ISO and so on, but the basics are not that hard to learn and a knowing these basics will pay off and get you better pics. That digital camera menu does not have to be a mine-field of incomprehensible technical data. There are many books that explain these, but I would also recommend a basic course on photography at your local community college. These courses are not that expensive, compared to the cost of even a cheap digital camera like a Canon A480, and knowing what's happening in your camera when you take a pic will make your photography more fun, too.

Magnification has much less to do with astronomy than beginners think. In fact, magnification is NOT a reliable way to choose a telescope and using too much magnification is the single biggest beginner mistake in astronomy. Astronomy is more about seeing faint objects, not about magnifying them and seeing faint objects is more about telescope aperture, in terms of mirror or objective size, rather than magnification. If you want to see fainter objects and therefore more objects, you use less magnification, not more. If you want to see fainter objects and therefore more objects, choose the largest telescope you can afford with the features that you want. You will also discover that using too much magnification on that first telescope will make the telescope nearly impossible to use.

You can get any magnification with just about any telescope by using the right eyepiece, but that does not mean the telescope can support that magnification. As magnification goes up, image brightness goes down and, with a small telescope, you quickly reach a point with magnification where all you see in the eyepiece is darkness. Worse yet, image quality goes down as magnification goes up and you also quickly reach a point in a small telescope where all you see is mush. Be especially wary of nonsense claims by manufacturers of exaggerated magnification. NO BEGINNER TELESCOPE, 70mm or under in size, will adequately support much more than 150x, either in terms of the optics OR the mount and typically, the atmosphere will limit you to even less. For the most commonly sold size in a beginner telescope - 60mm - you will struggle to get quality images at 120x. For a 50mm telescope, you must stay well under 100x to get images with any detail. In other words, if you are buying your first telescope, think in terms of telescope size, not in terms of magnification. Yes, all else equal, buying a larger telescope does cost more, but when it comes to beginner telescopes, buying anything smaller than 80mm means nearly always means you will need to buy another telescope if you decide to stay with astronomy.

As an avid reader, one of the things I like about amateur astronomy is the wealth of astronomy books that have been written, both for beginners and advanced amateurs. If you are just starting out in astronomy and have recently purchased that beginners telescope, you probably received a basic CD on astronomy. That's fine, but I do think it helps to have an old fashioned book or star chart. After all, astronomy is still basically a hands-on pastime and having information available when looking through a telescope is when and where you need it most. In that sense, a book beats a CD, no contest. We have a good basic star chart for beginners in the Celestron Illustrated stars and deep-sky objects reference guide. For the youngster with his/her first telescope, the Celestron Book - Peterson First Guides Astronomy 93728 is a great way to learn the basics.

Been trying to decide on a wedding present for my fiancé, Bill, and, since I work for a place that sells so much equipment, there should be no problem find something, right? Well, maybe. It's been so long since I bought anything for a man, I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. Bill loves photography and, especially video cameras, but he already has plenty of video cameras ... or does he? One thing he does not have is a video camera that can record the action while we are hiking, bikling, canoeing and skiing. Okay, so how about one of the Vhold video cameras, such as the VholdR? Mounts to a helmet and records what you see as you do it. Great idea. That way one of us won't have to miss the action and hold the video camera. Or I could wear the VholdR and record the action when I go down on my skis.

Been trying to decide on a wedding present for my fiancé, Bill, and, since I work for a place that sells so much equipment, there should be no problem find something, right? Well, maybe. It's been so long since I bought anything for a man, I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. Bill loves photography and, especially video cameras, but he already has plenty of cameras. I have so many binoculars that we won't need to get him one. We do both love camping, so I think there is some camping gear in our future. I think he would really like the … Oops, I forgot he might be reading this.

In terms of features, a monocular is a spotting scope, since you only get to use one eye. In terms of actual use, however, a monocular has more in common with a binocular since, 1) you don't use a tripod (and you must with a spotting scope) with a monocular and, 2) a monocular offers magnifications similar to a binocular. However, it should be noted that, although a monocular may be smaller than a binocular, a monocular is not as easy to use and steady as a binocular. You do pay a price to get the great portability of a monocular. Small size, does not mean you have to sacrifce image quality, though. A Nikon HG 7x15 monocular or Zeiss 10x25 monocular offer great image quality, on a par with a good binocular, with prices to match, of course.

Had the best November weekend weather, here in the Chicago area, since I moved to the area, about six years, ago. Unfortunately, I also had one of the worst sinus infections, ever, so didn't really get to enjoy the weather. Bill made the trip, down here, to be with me and, being the sweetheart he is, he stayed with me and nursed me back to health. Okay, we didn't get outdoors, but we did watch a DVD of the PBS show on Lewis&Clark. One of the things that interested me is that Lewis&Clark did make use of a telescope on a number of occasions, to spot ahead for danger. I assume the scope mentioned was an extendable style spotting scope, rather than a tripod mounted telescope, but it was a spotting scope, in essence, since they were using it by day. Have to remember the year was 1805, so people have been using spotting scopes for quite some time. It would have been nice to set them up with a Nikon EDG85, but that would have been about 205 years, too early.

It was really a very simple solution. I'm talking about making a GOTO telescope that aligns, itself, without any help from you, the observer. This telescope is the Meade ETX- LS. Just power up and let the scope do its own alignment. When it signals you that it is ready, you start observing. The secret is a camera, inside the telescope, that tales a snapshoot of the sky, them stacks that snapshot on the pics in its database for the exact time and location of your observing site. It provides more exact information than inputting time, date and location, manually. You can get the Meade ETX-LS in the better optically corrected Meade ETX-LS ACF or, if you want to save a little, the Meade ETX-LS SCT (Schmidt-Cassegrain. Either way, dealing with the computer on a telescope has never been easier. Now in stock at OpticsPlanet, and ready for the holidays.

As fall color and fall weather go, this has not been a great fall in our area. It has been overwhelmingly wet, cool and cloudy for the last two months and, at this point, most of the leaves have fallen or turned brown. On the few nice days we had, I did not manage to get out with a camera and it is not much fun taking pics with a digital camera in the rain, even for an outdoors nut like me. Okay, so I didn't do so well on fall colors. This just means I move forward into winter landscapes and prepare for that. Snow landscapes do offer special photographic opportunities, not to mention challenges as to metering. Just remember that your camera wants to turn everything a neutral photo gray, so either use a "snow" setting, if your digital camera has one or experiment with exposures by bracketing and so on. The biggest headache is a snow scene with very dark objects, like tree trunks. The huge gap between dark and light tends to confuse most computers in the camera, so you typically need to step in and shoot several shots of different exposures till you get just the right balance you want or, at least, close to it. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.