Your first telescope is likely to catch dust rather than photon.
It's statistics. And it's okay.
Buy accordingly.
So, how much money are you willing to throw away?
Maybe that should be your mindset.
There's a very good chance that that cheap retail telescope kit you're thinking of buying is garbage.
But you can get your money's worth out of it. And if you don't, you're not out of much money, right?
There are three general options for what happens when you buy your first telescope:
- You take it out once and never again.
- You take it out once, enjoy the experience, but never really take it out after that. You don't use it much or learn how to use it.
- You're either really committed or really inspired and you get over the learning curve (both the scope and the sky) and you get somewhat serious about the hobby.
If you're serious, you are likely going to upgrade sooner or later to a scope that is more capable and suits your needs better - preferences that you don't have until you get some experience.
In all cases, your garbage scope will likely sit around unused, or be gifted to a friend, or you sell it. All or most of the money is gone.
Is it a waste?
Some garbage scopes can be "horribly inferior" to quality gear, but most are still dramatically better than naked eyeballs (and more stable than binoculars).
Garbage scopes can help you learn about the sky.
Garbage scopes can provide views more steady and higher power than binoculars.
"Garbage scopes" can actually be pretty capable in narrow applications:
- low power views of the Milky Way in a dark sky - almost as good as really expensive scopes
- they will probably show you the moon in good detail. The lunar terminator (the day/night line) is pretty amazing.
- Jupiter's four Galilean Moons
- Saturn's Rings
- The Orion Nebula, some star clusters and the occasional naked eye comet
Finding and pointing a telescope at a target is a skill that needs practice. Garbage scopes can provide that practice.
So what is the difference between a garbage scope and expensive equipment?
Typical telescopes need to have:
- A reasonable-quality lens (or mirror)
- A tripod
- A mount - the (hopefully) metal pivoting piece between the tripod head and the telescope
- A focuser
- A finder
- A diagonal - so you don't get a stiff neck looking literally up at the sky (and generally on your knees to get your head underneath the eyepiece.
- Eyepieces - you generally want to see things at different powers. While there are zoom eyepieces they're comparatively expensive compared to two eyepieces of different power.
A high-quality rig might cost ten times the garbage equipment. Do you get ten times the experience? Not really. But, the experience tends to be more capable, more comfortable, and far less frustrating. The higher quality of the experience - you enjoy it more - means you'll do it more.
More convenience, more pleasure and a lot less frustration means you'll do it more. That's what you're paying the money for.
A cheap tripod is wobbly. The scope bounces around. At higher power you may have a hard time focusing on your target - you may not be able to see any detail as your image is bouncing all over the place.
A cheap mount is often really hard to point. It may be really hard to keep the target in the field of view (the Earth's spin moves targets out of the eyepiece rather quickly (especially at high power).
A cheap focuser (again, especially at high power) is hard to focus. The mechanism is rather coarse, it may be hard to move - which will exacerbate the wobbles in the mount and the tripod.
Red-Dot Finders have their adherents, but the ones included in beginner's kits take some getting used to. They're not precise, you can only use them on objects you can see with the naked eye.
Eyepieces, this is the part of the lightpath that gives you the look and feel of the telescope. A top-of-the-line eyepiece may cost well over $500. They can make you feel like you're in a spaceship looking out of a porthole. A cheap one can make you feel like you're looking through a straw. Guess which ones you get with a cheap kit? Yes, you get the $5 o $10 experience. And this is true regardless of how good the telescope is.
So that "garbage scope" just a complete throwaway experience.
Not at all.
Having an inexpensive focuser - at low power - isn't too frustrating. At higher power, they can be mild annoyances. If you're committed to the hobby, you do try to eliminate the easily eliminated frustrations. It's nice to get a dual-speed focuser for easy precise focusing, but it's not mandatory. Like ever.
A sturdy, easy to use mount is rather important. As you increase your power, the need to keep moving the scope to keep the target in the field of view becomes a more continuous effort. If you can't move it smoothly, precisely, and without causing the telescope to bounce, oscillate, vibrate, shake shake shake, your frustration will be sky high.
For beginners, simple altitude azimuth (up-and-down and side-to-side) is easier to use than the "equatorial" mounts. Both types may have gears for fine tracking (important only at high power). These slow-motion controls can be hard to use on the cheap mounts. The scope itself may be hard or jerky to move.
A shaky tripod means your target will always be bouncing around. You will not like this.
Cheap focusers may only accept eyepieces with a 1.25" barrel diameter. This is okay in the beginning. If you're get into the hobby, you'll want wide fields of view and wide apparent fields of view. Generally you'll want 2.00" diameter eyepieces and your cheap focuser will not accept them. Again, when you're ready to start buying 2" eyepieces, you'll be ready to buy a better telescope. So, for now, the 1.25" isnt' the end of the world. There are some amazing 1.25" eyepieces.
There is a target market for 1st time telescope buyers.
There are a lot of companies able to manufacture garbage equipment that you don't yet know is garbage.
An overriding vulnerability for the 1st time buyers is their lack of knowledge about what they're buying.
An overriding consideration is cost.
Perhaps the biggest predatory marketing tactic is to lie about "Magnification!!!!"
Because there is a fairly large market of non-discriminating buyers, a lot of manufacturers vie to separate the eager from their money.
You can build very inexpensive "telescope kits" from cheap worthless garbage materials.
525x Magnification! Sold!
The going price of "garbage kits" from random companies force the major astronomical companies (Celestron, Sky-Watcher, Explore Scientific, Orion, etc) to try to match that low price - you can get a telescope with a fairly decent glass (the objective (object-facing) lens).
Where manufacturers meet their margin is through the use of even cheaper, garbage-ier accessories.
Typical telescopes need to have:
- A reasonable-quality lens (or mirror)
- A tripod
- A mount - the (hopefully) metal pivoting piece between the tripod head and the telescope
- A focuser
- A finder
- A diagonal - so you don't get a stiff neck looking literally up at the sky (and generally on your knees to get your head underneath the eyepiece.
- Eyepieces - you generally want to see things at different powers. While there are zoom eyepieces they're comparatively expensive compared to two eyepieces of different power.
Focuser: 1.25"
Focuser: cheap single speed R&P
A reasonable-quality lens (or mirror)
Garbage Tripod
Wonky Mount
cheap eyepieces
diagonal
finder
No Standard Dovetail