Morrison Planetarium California Academy of Sciences

You won’t see any surface detail on Venus because it is covered with clouds. You can find something interesting to look at, though, because Venus has phases just like the moon, and you can easily see these phases with any telescope. Also, Venus is one of the brightest objects in the sky, and you can find it easily. Usually, Venus can be seen above the horizon before or after sunset; you can see it referred to in newspapers as “the morning star” or “the evening star.”
While there are differences between brands and types of telescopes, you will usually want to go with the larger aperture your budget can afford. Pluto is the farthest object in the Solar System that can be directly observed with your eyes. Objects beyond have been found, but they are detected using mathematical calculations.
Discover the best telescope for adults right here. and details they see depend more on their light-collecting ability and resolution than their magnification. Quick and easy no-tool setup, slow motion controls for smooth tracking, also ideal for terrestrial and astronomical use. Celestron PowerSeeker telescopes are a great way to open up the wonders of the Universe to the aspiring astronomer. The Orion SkyQuest XT4.5 Classic Dobsonian’s Newtonian reflector tube assembly features a big 4.5″ diameter light-gathering mirror housed in an enamelled steel tube.
It has a GoTo mount and a database of over 40 thousand night sky objects on which to automatically focus. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with objects visible with the naked eye you can start to point them out to other people. It’s very satisfying to be able to point to a bright dot in the night sky and say with confidence, “That’s Jupiter!
As an evening star, appears in the western sky setting about an hour after the Sun; as a morning star, it appears in the eastern sky rising about an hour before the Sun. Mercury usually appears as a bright “star” with a yellowish or ochre hue. The telescope’s aperture size is a huge factor you need to consider when purchasing a scope since it determines the amount you will be able to see through the scope. There is a proportionality between the telescope’s size and the resolving power, which is the ability of the scope to show details. Basically, this means that the greater the resolving power, the more the telescope will be able to display nearby objects one by one.
For a telescope with an aperture of 100mm and a focal length of 1000mm, a good set of eyepieces is 32mm, 16mm, and 6mm. They are extremely easy to use and offer excellent value for the money. A great finder scope will make it much easier to manually locate and center faint objects you wouldn’t otherwise be able to observe with your unaided eyes only. It consists of a primary mirror at the back of a long tube, a secondary mirror, which reflects light from the primary mirror at an angle of 45°, and an eyepiece, which focuses light and magnifies the image.