You’ll never see telescopes rated as to their “comfort” factor, but certain types of telescopes are potentially more comfortable to use than others. Refractor telescopes, for instance and other types of telescopes where the telescope eyepiece is located at the bottom of the telescope optical tube, allow you to sit down and use a chair for viewing. Not that I don’t mind standing to look through the telescope eyepiece when using my reflector telescopes, with their eyepiece located at the top of the optical tube, but it is nice to be able to sit while you observe for the sake of comfort.
Don’t dismiss this comfort factor as trivial. The more comfortable you can get when it comes time to setup & use a telescope, the longer your observing sessions tend to be and the more often you will be inclined to get out and do some astronomy. Just how comfortable can it get?
The most comfortable telescopes to use are actually not a telescopes, at all, they’re astronomy binoculars. Binoculars are the only instruments that actually allow me to stretch out flat on my back, either by laying on the ground or reclining in a lawn chair. ow’s that for comfort? it gets better.
By using an astronomy binocular tripods of the type known as a parallelogram mount, I can stretch back in my lawn chair and cover a huge chunk of the night sky with my binoculars without getting up and moving the lawn chair. Best of all, with a properly adjusted parallelogram mount, I can simply line up the binoculars on your target and let go. The binocular stay right where they are, without any help or support on my part. I couldn’t be any more comfortable than if I were in the house in a reclining chair, watching TV.
Now, that is some serious kind of comfortable.
