Telescopes

CHOOSING A TELESCOPE:

At OPT we dedicate ourselves to helping you find the best astronomy equipment that you need to succeed. Whether you're looking for a beginner telescope to get started or an astrograph to shoot professionally, OPT has the largest telescope selection of anyone worldwide. We have the most knowledgeable staff in the industry and exceptional customer service focused your success. For these reasons, we are confident in calling ourselves the Telescope Authority.

There are three questions to ask yourself in order to facilitate the process of narrowing down our huge selection of astronomy equipment so that you may find the perfect model to suit your desires.

The first question is the most basic- what do you plan to do with your telescope? We offer products that are optimally suited to a wide variety of tasks, with each different model being optimized for different uses.

The second question is where do you plan on setting your set-up, and how much can you comfortably lift? Some astronomy equipment can be highly portable, or they can add up to a monumental load of weight. The difference between a permanent and stationary setup and once you move from dark site to dark site is thereby a massive one.

The final question is, what is your budget? Some scopes range in pricing from a few hundred dollars all the way into being multi-thousand dollar investments- and for most people, the best choice is somewhere in the middle. Some of the best advice we can give is: the best telescope for you is the one you will use the most.

For further guidance, below we have compiled the main categories of telescopes and a basic summary for each. For even more information on types of telescopes, take a look at our telescopes types blog!

Reflectors:

OPT provides an extremely wide selection of reflecting telescopes that come in a number of varieties suited for a diverse range of applications. A reflector refers to any optical design that uses one or more curved mirrors to reflect light and form an image. This results in images that are free of chromatic aberration, which is one of the main issues to plague models that do not utilize reflecting designs. One of the main benefits of the reflector design is that it enables a very wide diameter objective. This means that reflectors are capable of being made much larger than comparable refractors, meaning that it is easier to make a reflector capable of gathering more light.

Refractors:

OPTs wide selection of great Refractors proves why we are the best in the world. Not only because we offer so many, but because we are the specialists for all! The word “refractor” means an optical design whose principal focusing element is a lens. Its curved primary (or largest) lens gathers light, bends it, and sends it back to a focal point where it is further modified by the use of another set of lenses called the eyepiece. The curvature and size of the primary lens dictate the amount of distance needed to achieve the focal point.

Astrographs:

Astrographs are the premier imaging optics, and OPT has a huge array of these in the Ritchey-Chretien and Dall-Kirkham styles. Astrographs are designed specifically for astrophotography. These are commonly employed when doing wide area surveys of star fields and are also used to detect comets and asteroids. To make this type of scope effective, the focal plane is normally designed to work with a specific size photograph plate – or modern CCD chip. This helps to deliver the largest, flattest field possible with clarity to the edge of the image.

Professional:

OPT has a long history of supplying professionals in the field of astronomy of all kinds of professional-grade scopes to the government, educational institutions, and private astronomers who demand nothing less than the absolute best. We are proud to supply a wide range of the very finest astronomy equipment in the industry, both in terms of sheer size of the aperture and in terms of optical quality and craftsmanship. If you're looking for the hardware required to perform research level astronomy, look no further- the pieces in this category are the very finest available. We stock such top-level manufacturers as PlaneWave, OOUK, and Officina Stellare, supplying the very best possible in research grade astronomy.

Dobsonians:

Dobsonians are versatile, inexpensive, and easy to use, and OPT stocks a wide array of them at high quality for this reason. The Dobsonian reflector is based on the idea that large optics can be inexpensive and very easy to use. Looking at the Newtonian design, John Dobson realized that the major concern was the primary mirror. The body of the tube and the base could be made of almost any inexpensive material so long as they were stable and could support the weight of the mirror.

Newtonians:

Newtonians, like the name implies, were invented by Sir Isaac Newton in 1668. They are free of chromatic aberrations, are often less expensive than other astronomy optics designs that have the same size aperture, provide wide field views due to their short focal length, are very efficient with light gathering because of their fast focal ratios and are very portable. Among under the umbrella of the Newtonians, there are several variant designs. These include Dobsonians, Maksutov Newtonians, Jones-Birds and Imaging Newtonians. Each of these designs has their own unique advantages which can greatly improve you observing experience.

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