An eight-inch mirror is only 33% wider than a six-inch, but it collects a whopping 77% more light, resulting in much brighter images at the eyepiece. It's often surprising to calculate the increase in light grasp between two telescope apertures. The mount also includes a well-thought-out eyepiece rack to keep your eyepieces organized and protected from knocks or drops in the dark. It's great for learning your way around the sky, offering an experience that's both easy and rewarding at the same time.
With built-in encoders and a handset using just a single 9v battery, it tells you how to manually slew the telescope to find whatever you're looking for. The StarBlast 6i's unique selling point is its intelligent push-to Dobsonian mount, which is not only compact and sturdy, but capable of helping you navigate the stars to find more than 14,000 objects. The supplied eyepieces provide good starting points for exploring a range of deep-sky objects, including large emission nebulae (like the Orion Nebula at 30x) and compact clouds (like the Ring Nebula at 75x.) The included red dot finder is a slight drawback to the overall package, but thankfully it uses a standard dovetail mounting shoe and can be upgraded to an optical finder at any time. Orion has delivered this in a tabletop format with their StarBlast 6i, which is capable of resolving stars in brighter globular clusters as well as the structures of planetary nebulae. Unfortunately, the included red-dot finder isn't optimal for hunting down deep-sky objects, but the telescope's smooth slewing controls will ensure you can hop to them using nearby field stars.Īstronomers generally agree that the deep sky starts to come to life in a telescope with at least six inches of aperture. With a 4.5-inch primary mirror, the Heritage-114P is on the smaller side for a Newtonian reflector, but it is great value within this affordable price range and provides surprisingly bright views of diffuse targets like nebulae and galaxies. This can find more than 40,000 objects in the sky for you - particularly useful for tracking down those very faint sights that don't readily jump out in the field of view. The Virtuoso tabletop Dobsonian mount can be upgraded at any time with the addition of Sky-Watcher's Synscan GoTo handset. With the mount's AA battery or DC-powered motors switched on, you can smoothly slew across the sky using the built-in controls, and then keep your object of interest steadily within the field of view.
It offers the full Newtonian reflector experience with the added benefit of being able to automatically counteract the rotation of the Earth and track the sky. Despite its diminutive size and light weight, the Heritage-114P Virtuoso isn't lacking in features.
This telescope is a firm favorite among beginners looking for a highly portable start in deep-sky observation.
Here are some of the best telescopes for deep space exploration and photography. It could be a push-to system, which tells you how hot or cold you are, or a fully-fledged go-to system that steers itself to your preferred target. If you're new to the deep sky, consider a telescope that helps you to find these faint objects, which don't pop out as readily as the planets or bright stars. Computerized mounts are a must for imagers, and they have advantages for visual observers too. In general, mirrors are less expensive than lenses, so reflecting-type telescopes tend to offer more bang-for-your-buck when it comes to deep space views.įor astrophotography, highly corrected fast optics are more important, as well as sturdy and accurate mounts that can track the sky. Larger apertures collect more light and result in fainter objects becoming visible in the field. The number one factor in determining the relative deep-sky performance of any two telescopes is the aperture of the objective.