The market is flooded with telescopes of different brands, the sizes and being in different price ranges; nevertheless, all these telescopes are focused on fans. How not to get lost in this variety and to choose the telescope which will give you pleasure for many years?
There are several simple questions which you need to answer:
1. Be defined where you will make observations. Best of all the places remote from lighting of big cities approach. Think, whether rather dark sky for observation in your region.
2. Realize that the equipment should be transferred, adjusted often. Whether you are ready to it?
3. Do you have a place where you will store the telescope?
4. Whether additional food is required to the telescope? Where to take it?
If at your disposal only an apartment balcony – try a small refractor or the mirror and lens telescope of small diameter. They differ in rather small weight, simplicity of control and firmness in relation to light and dust pollution, have very contrast picture. Unfortunately, refractors are rather expensive and inclined to chromatic aberrations (emergence of a blue-violet border).
If you live in the private house, it is possible to pick up a copy with a diameter of pipe up to twenty centimeters. It is the best of all to observe, of course, stars in the country, then it is possible to take the sensitive telescope more diameter. Here it is possible to get a reflector which has less contrast picture, than at a refractor, but it is cheaper and its aperture is limited rather to your financial opportunities, than something another.
More expensive, mirror and lens telescopes are compact, but are heavy, their picture is deprived of chromatism, but because of rereflection in mirrors to them there are high svetopoter and this type of telescopes possesses the maximum time of thermostabilization.
Except the choice of the telescope it is important to choose correctly mount on which it will stand. There are two types of mounts — equatorial and azimuthal. Azimuthal about two axes are guided, are extremely various, have small weight and take less places at installation. Nevertheless, they are not so convenient as they equatorial which are guided on one axis and in the absence of mechanization yield more exact result.
Also there are computerized mounts which find the necessary object and watch it. It is necessary to consider that it makes sense to use the computerized mounts only with good, expensive telescopes, otherwise their efficiency will be very small.