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. The objective is the largest lens at the front of a refractor, or the largest mirror of a reflector (the primary mirror). For telescopes, size definitely matters.
Aperture Fever An odd psychological condition caused by seeing other people with telescopes larger than yours. Also referred to as "Aperture Envy." Symptoms include: Gazing for hours at advertisements for large telescopes; Buying large telescopes; Gazing for hours at advertisements for even larger telescopes; Buying even larger telescopes; etc. In it's dreaded final stages, Aperture Fever can lead to loss of job, loss of family, depletion of bank accounts and other assets, or becoming very popular at star parties and other astronomical events (although others are then at risk of infection).
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. However,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.
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 have 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).
Declination All astronomical objects are located via a pair of coordinates: Right Ascension and Declination. These are easily visualized by imagining that the Earth is in the center of a hollow celestial sphere, which has all the stars, nebulae and galaxies painted on the shell, and the sun, moon and planets move around the shell's inner surface. We can then project the Earth's lines of Latitude and Longitude onto the sphere, and have a unique location for each object (obviously, these will change rapidly for quickly moving objects, very slowly for slower objects. See also precession). The Declination is the celestial latitude,the Right Ascension is the celestial longitude. "The Ecliptic" is the path the Sun travels over the course of the year. If it were projected onto the Earth it would form a sine wave bounded by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
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.
Drive Drives are used on telescopes to compensate for the rotation of the Earth, so that when you center a celestial object in the telescope's eyepiece, it will still be there a long time later, even though the star is appearing to move across the sky. Without one, an object will slowly "crawl" out of the field of view in the eyepiece. Drives are virtually essential for astrophotography, but usually not needed for ordinary observing.
Equatorial Mount 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.
Equatorial mounts are virtually essential if you intend to do astrophotography, but are also much more expensive than the dobsonian or other altazamuth types.
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 eyepiece. 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:
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" eyepieces. 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, f/8, etc. 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 millimeters--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). Another way to look at it is this: An 8" f/10 telescope has a focal length 10 times longer than the mirror diameter, for a total of 80".
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).
i.e. take the f/number and divide it by the focal length of the eyepiece.
6.3/12 = .525 and 10/19 = .526 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.
See also helical focuser and rack-and-pinion focuser
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 altazimuth or equatorial (through the use of a wedge). Fork mounts are most commonly used with Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, and are almost always equatorial.
Helical Focuser A screw-like device used to adjust the focus of the eyepiece. The focuser is turned right or left, like a screw, moving the eyepiece in or out.
German Equatorial Mount The first equatorial 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 Declination shaft 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 A type of catadioptric telescope.
Meridian An imaginary north/south line passing through the zenith. This is important to astronomers. For example, when the Sun crosses the meridian where you are, it is local noon.
See also transit.
Newtonian A type of reflector telescope invented by Isaac Newton (in fact, the very first kind of reflector). Very popular with amateurs today.
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 Primary Mirror). 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.
Primary The largest and most important mirror in a reflecting telescope. This is the first mirror the incoming light strikes. The primary is curved, causing the reflected light to approach a focus point. Usually, before reaching the focus, the light will hit the secondary mirror, and then pass through the eyepiece. When someone talks about the "size" or "Aperture" of their reflector, they are referring to the diameter of the primary mirror.
Rack-and-Pinion Focuser A type of focuser using a knob and a gear-and-teeth assembly to focus the eyepiece. The knob is turned, causing the eyepiece to move in or out.
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 One of the two celestial coordinates used to locate objects in the sky. See Declination.
Rocker Box This is the base of the dobsonian telescope. The optical tube, which holds the primary mirror, secondary mirror, eyepiece, and finder sits in a "cradle" in the rocker box.
Schmidt-Cassegrain
A type of Catadioptric telescope
Secondary As the name suggests, this is the second mirror that the light hits in a reflector telescope. Usually, after striking the secondary mirror, the light passes through the eyepiece and into your eye. Secondary mirrors can be mounted on spiders, stalks, or attached to the correction lens of a catadioptric telescope.
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. If your telescope DOES show spherical aberration, take it back to where you bought it and demand a refund.
Spider A device to hold the secondary mirror of a reflector in place, in the middle of the optical tube. Spiders are more secure than the "stalk" type of secondary mirror holders because there are more contact points (Four, to be exact).
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.
Stalk A type of mount for the secondary mirror in a reflector. The stalk mount is less expensive than a spider, but also less sturdy and more prone to slip out of alignment. It consists of a single rod which attaches to the inside of the optical tube, usually at the eyepiece.
Transit When a celestial object crosses the meridian. This only happens once in 24 hours for any given object. The precise time this happens is dependent on the object's right ascension. Often, observatories have special transit telescopes whose sole job is to observe the precise time that stars and other objects transit the meridian. This information is then used to make very accurate star charts.
Wedge This is the thing that a fork-mounted Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 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. Worm drives are very accurate and smooth. 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 point in the sky directly overhead. An object "transits" when its line of right ascension crosses the zenith.
![[Barlow]](Images/scopeFAQ/barlows.gif)
![[Dobsonian Telescope]](Images/scopeFAQ/dobsonian.gif)
![[Eyepieces]](Images/scopeFAQ/eyepieces.gif)
![[Finder Scope]](Images/scopeFAQ/finder.gif)
![[Helical Focuser]](Images/scopeFAQ/helical.focuser.gif)
![[Primary Mirrors]](Images/scopeFAQ/primary.mirrors.gif)
![[Rack and Pinion Focuser]](Images/scopeFAQ/rack.and.pinion.gif)
![[Refractor]](Images/scopeFAQ/refractor.gif)
![[Rocker Box]](Images/scopeFAQ/rocker.box.gif)
![[Spider]](Images/scopeFAQ/spider.gif)
![[Spotting Scope]](Images/scopeFAQ/spotters.gif)