Helpful Articles

Solar observation and solar photography are a lot of fun with the right equipment, and this is a great time to start.   Every 11 years the Sun’s magnetic field completely flips. That means that the north and south poles switch places. Then the cycle starts aga...

So you got a new telescope; now what? It usually starts out with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. You get a new telescope, get it assembled and maybe test it out through a window looking at a tree or a car across the street. The clarity and magnification are imp...

GoTo telescopes are terrific for their ease of finding objects, then automatically tracking them. They work well, but only if they are set up properly. Here are tips for avoiding the common errors.

Once you have your new telescope, here are tips we’ve found useful to ensure a happy experience on your first night out, and on what we hope will be many enjoyable nights under the stars after that.

The Celestron Nexstar is the most popular and commercially successful telescope ever, and with good reason.  They are perfect for curious amateurs that want something they can grow with as...

Buying the right  telescope as a beginner can be a real challenge.  In these articles we explain the key considerations when buying a beginner telescope.  We'll cover the vocabulary you're going to encounter, and the trade offs that beginners need to consider as they get a sta...

Once you have become familiar with the sky and have been enticed by the views through other peoples’ telescopes, you will want your own. So what to buy?

We present our suggestions for telescopes we find offer great value in each of several price ranges. But within a price class, you have a choice of what features might be most important to you and for your observing site. For example …

Taking deep sky pictures can be daunting, luckily there is an easy process to follow to allow you to get great shots! Here is the typical process for actually taking deep-sky images in the field.

Using a star tracker gains you experience with the fundamentals of deep-sky imaging. Shooting the Moon gains you experience focusing and framing through your telescope. Through your sessions you’ll encounter challenges like clouds, dew, aircraft, satellites, wind, an...