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Hull and East Riding

Astronomical Society

The frequently asked question…


One of the most common questions is “what telescope should I buy?”.  This is a very difficult question to answer, as you will see, but hopefully the links we have provided below will be a good starting place for you.  We suggest that you read some / all of these articles first and if you need more help remember there will always be people to ask at our meetings


Common advice is to consider a good pair of binoculars to start with, since much of the sky can be explored with the wide field of view that these provide. Secondly, it’s probably best to avoid the ‘toy’ telescopes that chain stores sell, since the view is often so poor that they can put you off completely!


Anyway, here is our suggested list of good resources for beginners’ buying advice:

The ‘Sky at Night’ article - a good introduction:

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/buyers-guides


BBC article in PDF:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/stargazinglive/sgl_guide_to_telescopes.pdf


A BBC video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6rXWIVgjVQ


A good article from Space.Com:

http://www.space.com/18916-telescope-buying-advice-binoculars.html?cid=dlvr.it


A short but useful article from Sky & Telescope:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-information/