Q&A for How to Use a Telescope

You keep both eyes open because if you close one eye, your open eye vibrates slightly. This leads to the image being blurrier.

No. The shortest one is the most powerful. Don’t use too much power or it’ll be too blurry though.

Make sure you aren't in a light polluted area first, but if that's not the case, be very careful in your focus adjustment. Normally a "crystally" look could either mean humidity / dew in the scope or lens or you're looking at a star instead.

There's many stars to see, and unless the weather is bad, you can just point your telescope anywhere during the night sky and find some stars. Focus your telescope slowly for each new spot you view and give it a look. You can also try referring to a constellation map if you're wanting to see certain ones.

Yes, you can. Venus is easily visible in the daytime if you know where to look for it. Jupiter is also visible shortly following sunset or shortly before sunrise.

Using the focusing knobs on the side (usually next to the eyepiece), you can shorten or lengthen the distance between the eyepiece and lens of the telescope. Adjust them until you see a sharp image.

Well, the higher the number of mm, the lower the magnification. For example, 4mm has a higher magnification than 25mm.

Rather than use a telescope how about some high powered binoculars? The binoculars are very effective and much easier to use.

No, removing the side with the reflector on will damage the telescope.

It's best not to be in an area that has very bright street lamps when looking through a telescope.

From the Northern Hemisphere, learn the shapes and how to find Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and then Cassiopeia in the north-facing night sky. Cassiopeia and Ursa Major flank Ursa Minor, and at different times of year and times of night, one or the other will be higher in the sky. After you have become familiar with finding these, you can next work on learning the constellations that are nearest them. Work your way to more of the night sky from there.

A refractor telescope is better suited for detailed images of planets. For looking at stars, galaxies, and nebulae, you'll need a reflector.

Twist the handle counter clock wise. That should loosen it enough for you to move it.

The size of the lens just changes the amount of light entering the telescope. A larger lens lets you see things that emit less light, like some stars, galaxies, and nebulae.

A particular end of an optical telescope needs to be uncovered for viewing objects. Some types of telescopes have lenses, or thin corrector plates, or thin plain optical windows on that end. Others have an opening that allows the light to pass to a light-collecting mirror.

The smaller number (shorter focal length) eye lenses produce higher magnifications of planets and all other objects seen through your telescope. At the same time, they show smaller pieces of the night sky. This makes it hard to first locate a planet or other object using the small number lenses. Always start with the largest number eyepiece (e.g. 25mm) to first find the planet. Once it is in your field of view, center it carefully, then switch to a low number eyepiece without moving the scope. You may need to re-focus and re-center the planet in the higher power eyepiece's field of view.

If your telescope is only moved by hand, you generally must loosen the axis locking knobs. Some motorized telescope drives require you to tighten those knobs so that the gears can engage and drive the telescope. On these scopes, loosen the knobs to manually position the scope in an approximate direction of interest, then tighten them to let the motors move the telescope.

Some of the easiest planets to view are the outer planets: Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They are bright, with Jupiter shining at -2. 5 magnitude at its brightest. Mars is a close second, getting to its brightest every two years and bringing it close to the brightness of Jupiter. Every 15 - 17 years, it will be brighter than Jupiter! Saturn is much dimmer and looks like an average star. Let's go to the inner planets. Mercury and Venus tend to move like swings (ever so slowly, though), with the sun as their pivot. This means they never stray too far from the sun. So all you have to do is get a star app like Star Walk 2. Tip: planets don't twinkle.

Not at all! Try using a Barlow lens. If that does not help, switch to a higher magnification eyepiece. If you tried all of the above and it's still small, then there isn't really anything you can do. A deep sky object or a far planet like Saturn naturally appears small due to the distance between you and the object.

For viewing astronomical objects, you want a reflecting telescope. Search for a "Newtonian" or a "Cassegrain" telescope. For viewing galaxies and nebulae, do not get a telescope with a high zoom. Instead, you want to get one that has as high a diameter as possible, as it will collect more light and make objects appear brighter. Optionally, you can get a UHC (ultra-high contrast) telescope filter, which is specially constructed to block out light pollution but transmit the light emitted by galaxies and nebulae.

If the focus tube/drawtube has one or two screws at the end, undo them a little, ensuring that they do not fall out. Take out the existing eyepiece and place in the other. If the eyepiece is fixed, then you will need to "modify" the focus tube/drawtube assembly.

Your view is upside down and laterally inverted (left and right side interchanged) in telescopes because of the way in which lenses and mirrors bend and focus the light to a point. This might be a little uncomfortable and disorienting initially, but you'll soon get used to it. However, if that really bothers you, you can purchase other types of telescopes which allow you to view the image in an upright manner.

You can use the Celestron First Scope, which is only between $25 - $50 US, and you can easily see stars, moons, planets and even some galaxies.

Your eye may be too close to the lens, you may be missing an eye cup that is designed to hold your eye slightly away from the lens. Sometimes an eyepiece is provided with a fold-down eye cup that you should fold down when using spectacles but fold out when not using spectacles. Alternatively, you may be using an eyepiece lens that is too powerful to be effectively used with your telescope.

It is like an intermediary lens. You can fit any eyepiece to it. First, fix it to the telescope and then put the eyepiece. Having a Barlow lens doubles the number of eyepieces, in a sense.

Light pollution tends to be proportional to population density. If you can find an area without many people, you should be able to find a dark spot at night. Desert locations are often perfect.

It collects dust because there is usually dust floating in or blowing through the air, and dust tends to adhere to glass surfaces.

No. Presumably it would be cloudy, which would block the night sky.