Telescope upgrading

What do you actually get when you upgrade from a child’s telescope to a beginner’s telescope or from a beginner’s telescope to an intermediate telescope?

Almost always, when you upgrade your telescope, you are paying for three elements; portability, optical quality and build quality.

For portability, you should expect your upgrade to lead you to a telescope that can easily be moved by one person while carrying it in one or two pieces, each weighing around 20lbs or less.

For optical quality, you should expect your upgrade to lead you to a telescope that has an aperture of f-8 or faster (meaning a number that is 8 or smaller), that has limited chromatic aberration (fringes of color around the image), no vignetting (dark corners of the image), no spherical aberrations (halos around the image) and no other distortions (dark or blurry images, etc).

For build quality, you should expect your upgrade to lead you to a telescope that is built with strong and lightweight materials that feel durable during use and the telescope should come attached to a very sturdy mount which offers smooth repositioning adjustments.

You may also find upgrades like on-board tracking computers, heaters to evaporate dew, GPS location systems and CCD imagers on higher priced telescopes.

Two telescope upgrades that we recommend are the Orion SkyQuest XT6 and the Orion SkyQuest XT8.

Click Here for Orion SkyQuest Telescopes at Amazon.com!