SingAstro

Hi,

Complete newbie here... may I know what level of details I can see with the telescope mentioned above?

I am just curious on the scale of things I can see and the level of detail. For example, if I wanted to just see Jupiter with reasonable brightness and with some details, then would Jupiter fill up 5% / 10% / 50% / 100% of the view in the eyepiece? (I doubt it'll be more than 10% but just wanted to confirm).

Thanks.

Hi

I thought about how best to show you and decided to do it via this program called Stellarium. It's a freeware and I believe you should install this for your child and yourself as well for reference. It's an excellent planetarium software. It actually has this function called Ocular that allows one to gauge the magnification and all. Assuming I did the right thing (from the information gathered on Celestron First Scope from Amazon), the image attached should show exactly how it will look like through reflector. I may or may not be correct, but it's a rough gauge, suppose someone better will come along and help you as well.

Hope it helps you well.

Reflector is for more aperture at a given budget, but the 3inch firstscope reflector DOES NOT have any price advantage compared to a 3inch refractor for beginner. The central obstruction would cause the contrast to be lower than an equivalent size refractor too.
Avoid the low-tier newtonian mirrors with spherical mirror, go for parabolic mirror.


Jupiter or Saturn would be approximately the size of a soybean held at arms length, far smaller than any internet or book image.