Page 52 - Astronomy - October 2017 USA

GIA
Image the

The author uses this
14-inch Celestron
Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescope for many
of the images he has
produced during the
past several years.

hotographing the planets has the best film photographs ever obtained telescope can record considerable detail on
long been a mainstay of both with the world’s largest telescopes. Jupiter, while larger apertures are needed
amateur and professional astrono- for Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
mers. It wasn’t so long ago that Telescopes for Regardless of the type of telescope you
images from Voyager were wowing planetary imaging decide to use, there are several key points
Pastronomers and scientists while Telescopes come in many designs, shapes, to consider from a telescope/hardware
amateurs struggled with photographic and sizes, and selecting the right one for perspective:
film to capture clear images of our nearest high-resolution imaging is important. In • Collimation of the optics. This is
neighbors. It’s fair to say they were falling general, almost any good-quality telescope vital, especially with reflectors. Many
well short of not only the images space- can produce great images, but certain guides are available online and are often
craft were taking, but even the sketches designs are more favored than others. provided with the purchase of a new tele-
visual observers were recording with pen- Today the most popular choices among scope. Also keep in mind that it is a good
cil and paper. experienced amateurs are large-aperture idea to check the telescope collimation reg-
Since then, a revolution has occurred Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain tele- ularly, especially if you store it indoors and
within this field of astronomy. Gone are scopes. These provide plenty of light- must move it outside each time.
the days of blurry and fuzzy photographs gathering power at affordable prices and, • Thermal equilibrium. Allow the tele-
showing little fine detail. Major leaps in in experienced hands, can produce highly scope as much time as possible to reach the
technology have enabled today’s amateur detailed images. same temperature as the outside air. This is
astronomers to produce images better than With modern cameras, even a 6-inch especially important for larger apertures.

52 ASTRONOMY • OCTOBER 2017