|
Personal Use Telescopes
Many people around the globe enjoy watching
the stars and have their own personal use
telescopes to observe the heavens. These
telescopes can range in quality and price,
typically between a couple hundred and a couple
thousand dollars. Just like huge research
telescopes, personal use telescopes should have a
wide aperture to allow more light in to view a
brighter image. Personal use telescopes only see
in visible light because of the expense associated
with instruments needed to view in other
wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.
However, more high end telescopes now come with
GPS and, or Go To Navigation that will allow the
observer to automatically align the telescope to
reference stars, and track objects as they move
across the sky.
A large reason many people enjoy astronomy
in the first place is because they have as good a
chance to see or discover something that
scientists and the most expensive telescopes might
miss. An article posted by ABC
News in 2009 told of how amateur astronomers
have made several discoveries over the years that
were considered knowledgeable contributions to
studying celestial bodies. Included in the article
was a man who noticed a new "scar" on Jupiter,
another man, William Herschel, who discovered the
planet Uranus in 1781, and a minister who has
spotted 42 supernovas.
|
