Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the Earth

— Archimedes 200 BC

telescope

17th-century Brueghel paintings trace the early, mysterious history of the telescope

Thanks to the much-heralded International Year of Astronomy, this much we know: Galileo used a telescope to observe the moon in 1609. But the inventor of the revolutionary resolutionary device remains unknown, and its early history is muddied by simultaneous discoveries and competing claims.

Giant Rockets from NASA in our future

 


 

From the days of our previous moon landings, we felt nothing could be larger than the Saturn V rocket, hurling the Lunar Lander and appendages towards the moon.

We then create a fabulous space telescope, "Hubble" and over the following years it has given us stupendous views of the cosmos.

New telescope LAMOST comes online in China

The LAMOST Schmidt Telescope

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) is a quasi-meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope laid down on the ground with its optical axis fixed in the meridian plane. IT has a 4m aperture. With a 1.75 m focal plane it has a 5 degree field of view, and a 1/0.25 nm spectral resolution! 4000 optical fibers collect the spectra of 4000 objects. It has  the highest spectrum acquiring rate in the world. It is located at the Xinglong Observing Station outside Bejing.

Collimation of scope

Does anyone have a sure fire way of collimating a 5" Celestron Schmitt Cassegrain without spending a fortune?

Buying A Telescope

Telescopes are a popular gift item, but one should consider this idea carefully. Cheap telescopes are a dime a dozen and only end up discouraging, rather than encouraging, the user. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to use a telescope that wobbles so much you can't see or find anything through.

Keep in mind the following tips: