Telescope Buyers' FAQ - Part Four
What Does All the Jargon Mean?
Okay, by popular request, here is a glossary of common astronomy terms encountered in amateur astronomy.
Altazimuth mount
This is what you think of when you think of a tripod mount. It
allows movement in two directions: parallel to the ground (azimuth),
and at right angles to the ground (altitude). It is very useful for
terrestrial observations, as it is a very natural way of observing.
(Note: Dobsonian Telescopes are mounted this way)
Aperture
The diameter of the objective.
Barlow
A Barlow lens is a device which has the effect of increasing the
magnification. It does this by lengthening the effective focal
length of the telescope you are using. Thus a 2x Barlow will double
the magnification, a 3x will triple it. Barlows used to have a bad
reputation, stemming largely from rather poor quality ones being
sold. Modern Barlows are high quality and a good choice for
expanding your collection of eyepieces. You should keep the Barlow
in mind when buying eyepieces- buying a 3mm,6mm, 12mm, and a 24mm
and a 2x Barlow is a very dumb idea. The only use you get from the
Barlow is changing the 3mm to a 1.5mm (which is probably going to
give you higher than usable magnification anyway). On the other
hand, a 6mm, 9mm, 15mm and 24mm would be complemented very well by a
2x Barlow.
Binocular Telescope
A set of Dobsonian telescopes mounted so their eyepices form
a Binocular 3D view of the sky.
Catadioptric
Any of a number of compromise telescope designs, using both a
lens and mirrors. Examples are the Schmidt-Cassegrain and
Maksutov-Cassegrain. Because the light path is folded twice, the
telescope is very compact. These are pretty expensive. Pictures
can be seen in the ads in any issue of a popular astronomy magazine:
the Meade 2080 and the Celestron C-8 are examples of Schmidt-
Cassegrain; the Celestron C-90 and Questar are examples of
Maksutov-Cassegrain.
Chromatic Aberration
In refractor telescopes, which use lenses to bend the light,
different wavelengths of light bend at different angles. This
means that the stars you see will usually have a blue/violet ring
around them, as this light is bent more than the rest of the
spectrum. It is not present at all in reflectors, nor to any
significant degree in catadioptrics. Different glasses and crystals
(notably fluorite) are sometimes used to compensate for the
aberration. Such telescopes are termed "achromat," or "apochromat"
if the correction is is nearly perfect.
Collimation
This refers to how correctly the optics are pointing towards each
other. If a telescope is out of collimation, you will not get as
clear an image as you should. Refractors generally haved fixed
optics, so you don't have to collimate them. Reflectors and
catadioptrics usually have screws that you turn to collimate.
(This only takes a few minutes to do- it is dead easy).
Coma
This refers to the blurring of objects at the edge of the
field of view, most common in short focal ratio Newtonian telescopes
(at f/10 and longer, Newtonians are very well corrected for coma).
Dobsonian
Named for John Dobson of The San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers
(who prefers to call these "Sidewalk Telescopes"), this is a design
which allows for very large apertures at very affordable prices. The
trade-off is that they are mounted on altazimuth mounts, instead of
equatorial ones, which makes them essentially useless for
astrophotography, but an inexpensive alternative if you only plan to
do visual work. These are light buckets. If you are planning to
build your own telescope, you might want to consider a Dobsonian.
Note: That this design is now the #1 design seen at many star parties.
Equatorial
An equatorial mount is set to the current latitude, and is polar
aligned (pointed at the North Pole in the Northern Hemisphere, the
South Pole in the Southern Hemisphere) and then moves only in Right
Ascension and in Declination. This take a while to get used to, but
offers the wonderful side effect of being able to track the
astronomical objects you are looking at as they move across the sky
(which is very visible motion at telescopic magnifications) by
moving in only one direction (Right Ascension). Most equatorial
mounts come with motor drives that take care of this for you.
Exit Pupil
This refers to how wide the beam of light exiting the eyepiece is,
and is equal to the aperture divided by the magnification. If it is
bigger than the size of your pupil in the dark (7mm when you are
young, 5 or 6mm when you are over 40, as a general rule) you will
not be taking in all the light available - effectively, you will be
using a smaller aperture telescope than you have.
Eyepiece
This is the thing you actually look into. Almost all telescopes
separate the Optical Tube (the telescope proper) from the eye piece.
Essentially, the telescope makes a really tiny image of what it's
pointed at. The eyepiece acts as a magnifying glass to allow you to
see the image bigger than it would otherwise be. The magnification
is the focal length of the telescope divided by the focal length of
the eyepiece. Eyepieces are described by the diameter of the barrel,
always expressed in inches (.965", 1.25" and 2" are the sizes in
common use) and the focal length always expressed in millimeters
(4mm - 40mm is the usual range). Short focal length eyepieces are
also termed high power, long focal length are low power.
Also significant with eyepieces is the apparent field of view (expressed in degrees) and eye relief (expressed in millimeters). The apparent field refers to how big the circle of space you see in an eyepiece appears. Bigger is better. Eye relief is a measure of how far from the eyepiece you can have your eye and still see. If you wear glasses to correct astigmatism, you will need fairly long eye relief (the focus knob will correct for almost all vision problems except astigmatism).
There are several types of eyepiece designs. The most popular are Kellner (inexpensive, most popular for cheap telescopes, short eye relief and narrow fields of view. Good to avoid if you can afford better); Orthoscopic (good price/performance compromise); Erfle (wide field of view, expensive); Plossl (perhaps the best all-around eyepiece. Some moderately expensive versions available); and Ultra Wide (very expensive, almost double the number of lenses as other designs makes for more light loss in the eyepiece, large exit pupils. Can cost more than a small telescope. Not a good place to spend your money when you are just starting out).
You really don't want to buy many .965" eyepieces- they are generally not as well made as the 1.25" ones, and if you get a bigger telescope it will probably not accept your .965" eye pieces. You can buy an adapter to let you use 1.25" in your .965" focuser. This is probably worth the money.
f/10, f/6.3 See Focal Ratio
Finder scope
The finder scope is a low power telescope attached to the telescope
you are using. Because most telescopes show such a small portion of
the sky, it is virtually impossible to locate anything just by
looking through them. So you look through the finder scope to center
the object you want (the finder has crosshairs) and then you can use
your real telescope on it.
Note that you can ignore all the claims about big finder scopes. You almost certainly don't care. All you need is to be able to point your main telescope at something in the sky. Finder scope size only matters when you are starhopping through fairly dim stars (where the larger aperture allows you to see dimmer stars). This will not be an issue for you for quite a while (if ever).
Many people use a Telrad sight, which is simply a red LED you can sight on - you get absolutely no more aperture than your naked eye. The finder scopes are usually advertised as 8x50 (or such). The eight refers to the magnification, the 50 to the aperture in millimetres - just like binoculars.
Focal Length
This is the length of the light path, from the objective to the
focal plane. The magnification is the focal length of the telescope
divided by the focal length of the eyepiece. See also focal ratio.
Focal Plane
The plane that the telescope (or eyepiece) focuses on. When you
turn the focus knob on the telescope, you are moving the eyepiece
back and forth until you make the two focal planes coincide.
Focal Ratio
Also referred to as the 'speed' of the telescope, is the ratio of
focal length to aperture, and is always expressed as an f/number.
Thus an 8" telescope with a 2000mm focal length is f/10 (because 8"
is 200mm, and 2000 / 200 = 10). An f/10 telescope is 'slower' than
an f/4.
Fast telescopes give wider, brighter images with a given eyepiece than slower ones (but note that at a given magnification, the images are-assuming identical optics-exactly the same: what you see through a f/6.3 telescope with a 12mm eyepiece is identical in width and brightness to what you would see through a f/10 telescope with a 19mm eyepiece).
In general, the slower the telescope the more forgiving it is of optical errors in the objective and eyepiece. A telescope of f/10 is fairly forgiving, f/6.3 much less so.
Focuser
This is the thing that holds the eyepiece. It moves in and out so
you can focus the telescope. It is always included with the
telescope when you buy one. The size, almost always .965", 1.25" or
2" refers to the barrel diameter of the eyepieces it accepts.
Fork Mount
A fork mount is a type of mount where the telescope is held by two
arms, and swings between them. A fork mount can be either
alt-azimuth or equatorial (through the use of a wedge). Fork mounts
are most commonly used with Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, and are
almost always equatorial.
German Equatorial Mount
The first equatorial mount devised and still the most common for
small to moderate sized reflectors and refractors. Unlike the
equatorial fork, the german equatorial is suitable for telescopes
with either short or long tubes (although, if poorly designed, a
long tube may strike the tripod, preventing viewing at the zenith).
They usually are designed with movable counterweights, which make
them easy to balance, but heavy and bulky.
The tube of the telescope is joined to a shaft (the Declination shaft or axis) which rotates in a housing that in turn is joined at right angles to another shaft (The polar axis). The polar axis is pointed at the celestial pole (just like any other equatorial mount). A counterweight, which is required for balance, is placed on the other end of the decination shaft.
Tracking an object past the zenith requires that the telescope be turned (both Right Ascension and Declination rotated through 180 degrees), which reverses the field of view. Not so much a problem for visual astronomy, but a limitation on astrophotography.
Light Bucket
A common slang term for a large aperture. The cure for 'Aperture
Fever'.
Maksutov-Cassegrain
See catadioptric.
Meridian
An imaginary north/south line passing through the zenith.
Newtonian
See reflector.
Objective
This is the thing that gathers light from the sky and folds the
light into a cone. In a refractor it is the big lens that points at
the sky, in a reflector it is the big mirror at the bottom of the
tube. The job of the objective is to create a light cone which comes
into tight focus at a single focal point.
Optical Tube
This is the telescope proper. It is the tube which holds the
objective. The rest of the stuff are accessories, such as the mount,
tripod, and eyepieces. When reading ads, note that some times
optical tubes are sold by themselves. You will need to go out and
buy (or build) a mount for them before you can use them.
Reflector
A reflector is any telescope which uses a mirror as its objective.
The most common type is the Newtonian reflector, which has a mirror
at the bottom of a tube, which focuses the light into a cone which
is deflected by a flat "secondary" mirror (which is mounted near the
top of the tube in something called a "spider") out a hole in the
side. This is where you put the eyepiece. The advantages of the
Newtonian design are numerous: there is only one optical surface on
a mirror, as opposed to two on a lens, so it is cheaper to make;
part of the light path is at right angles to the length of the tube,
so it can be somewhat shorter than a similar refractor; you can get
it in much larger apertures than a refractor, and there is no
chromatic aberration.
Refractor
This is what you usually think of as a telescope - it has a lens at
one end, and you look straight through the other. This is sometimes
referred to as a 'Galilean' telescope, as it is of the same design
that Galileo used (although strictly speaking, a Galilean telescope
is a specific kind of refractor - one with a simple double-convex
objective lens and a simple double-concave eye lens.
Right Ascension
See declination.
Schmidt-Cassegrain
See catadioptric.
Spherical Aberration
A problem where a lens or mirror in a telescope is not shaped
correctly, so the light from the center is focused at a different
location than the light from the edges. You should never have to
worry about this. This only shows up in really cheap telescopes.
Spotting Scope
A small telescope, always a refractor or catadioptric, generally
used for terrestrial viewing. Of limited utility for astronomy,
though many are marketed as such. Probably the wrong choice unless
you want to use it also for birdwatching, or as a powerful telephoto
lens on a SLR camera.
Wedge
This is the thing that a fork-mounted Schmidt-Cassegrain tele scope will attach to, to connect it to the tripod. You want it to be sturdy.
Worm Drive
This is the sort of drive most telescopes come with, if they come
with a drive. It is a very accurate and smooth drive. However, due
to imperfections in the manufacturing process, there will be
periodic errors that occur at the same point in every worm cycle
(usually about 8 minutes). To deal with this, higher end telescopes
come with drives which compensate for the mechanical defects.
Zenith
The sky directly overhead. An object 'transits' when its line of
right ascension crosses the zenith.
Author: Dennis Bishop