10/05/2018 – Ephemeris – All about telescopes for the gift giving season

Ephemeris for Friday, October 5th. The Sun will rise at 7:45. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 30 minutes, setting at 7:15. The Moon, halfway from last quarter to new, will rise at 4:28 tomorrow morning.

We at the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society get asked a lot about what kind of telescope to get for their beginning astronomer, whether young or old. With the gift-giving season coming upon us, now is the time to plan ahead. This month’s meeting at 8 p.m. at the Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory there will be several types of telescopes there, including one of mine*. There is no right telescope, but there are lots of wrong telescopes, and its not always the telescope itself, but the mounting that’s the problem. Society members will show you what the various telescopes can do, what you need, and don’t need. What’s the best telescope for what price range.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

* I’m currently suffering from a sprained wrist, so I may not be able to bring in my 11″ Dobsonian telescope, but will bring in a much smaller (3″) telescope of similar design instead.