Before you get to excited about the possibilities of getting close up and personal with deep sky objects that are stubbornly out of reach for smaller telescopes, the new Orion comes with a $55,000 price tag and at least a year’s wait for delivery.

Everything about the Orion Dobsonian is bigger and better -

* The 36" aperture parabolic primary mirror collects over 1000 square inches of light, which is four times that of an18-inch telescopes

* A top quality f/4 optical system gives a 144 inch focal length for pinpoint sharp, bright images

* A low-expansion borosilicate glass in a honeycomb mirror blank design gives the Orion Dobsonian strength without undue weight offering good optical performance

* Size does matter, but the Orion is easily portable weighing in at less than 400 pounds – the 150lb primary mirror is the heaviest component

* Finding objects in the sky is no problem with motorised tracking

* Images stay crisp thanks to a 27-point flotation mirror cell and eight-point wiffle-tree edge support system

* Removable wheels allow you to roll the Orion in and out of a shed or garage so you can start observing the sky in just a few minutes

Makers Orion boasts the Dobsonian reflector telescope takes up a car space – about 14 feet by 8 feet when assembled.

The Orion Monster Dobsonian is among the largest telescopes ever offered to amateur astronomers and harness premium optics and light gathering of telescopes generally only found in observatories and universities.

Warnings that come with the Orion Monster include keeping the beast covered by day as exposure to the sun may cause fires and will immediately fry the eyepiece and may cause burns and blindness if anyone is looking through at the time.

The company also suggests buyers have a forklift available to unload the telescope as the shipping weight of the mirror is 300lbs when crated.

Other telescopes rumoured on the Orion Dobsonian reflector drawing board is a 50-inch mirror.

Orion Skyquest XT 8 with Intelliscope locator    £300.00

Orion Shorty Plus 2x Barlow Lens 125    £16.00

Orion Apex 90mm Maksutov on EQ1 tabletop driven mount    £60.09

Solar Filter For Celestron 10 newt Orion Skywatcher 10    £104.99

Orion USA sirius plossl 17mm eyepiece    £24.99

Orion USA sirius plossl 10mm eyepiece    £24.99

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The first tip is don’t buy anything from a shop around town – go online.

Toy stores and discount warehouses are well known for churning out cheap telescopes that are OK as toys but next to useless for any serious sky watcher.

Buying the right telescope especially if it is the first for a child can make a big difference because a trashy telescope may put them off astronomy for good while a decent one may give them a passion for science that lasts for life.

Some of the best-known brands are Meade, Celestron and Orion.

Many starter packages come with a decent stargazing book or software to help novices on their way.

The magnification is not as important as it seems - you can change the magnification by changing eyepieces. Many telescopes also come with attachments to make them lenses for a digital camera so you can photograph the sky.

Any decent telescope will include several eyepieces. About 200 times power is enough to give a good look in to the night sky.

Reflector telescopes are sold by the diameter of their mirrors in inches.

The minimum diameter reflector telescope for a serious hobby astronomer should be at least six inches. Try extending your budget that extra £50 or so for an 8-inch reflector that almost doubles the light a 6-inch scope brings in.

Many people find Dobsonian mounts are easiest to use. An equatorial mount is more complicated, and costs more. Some mounts are computer driven to direct the telescope to pinpoint the object you want to view.

Try and think ahead when you buy your telescope – if the person takes up the hobby, they will definitely want to scale up to photography and computer assisted guidance, so make sure the ability to do so is built in.

Concentrate on optical quality from a good brand and you can’t go far wrong.

New 25 115x80zoom Telescope Spotting ScopeLow price    £68.99

CCD TelescopeCamera Planetaryimager f Telescope    £89.99

NIPON® 10x35 Monocular Pocket Telescope Brand New    £14.99

zennox telescope with tripod    £15.00

Opticron ES80 GA ED 45 Telescope    £250.00

Opticron 40862 HDF T Zoom Telescope Lens    £112.00

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The design makes the telescope easy to hold and manoeuvre, but lurking inside is a 76mm diameter mirror.

Based on Newtonian telescope, this little marvel gives great close ups of the craters, mountains and seas on the Moon.

A starter for a 10 year old!

As a starter, this is a much better option for youngsters than binoculars, which would have to be large and heavy for little arms to give the same optical power.

The Infinity 76 if fitted with a state-of-the-art aspheric mirror displaying sharp, high contrast images without any false colour, which eliminates a common frustration of many low-cost telescopes.

The Infinity 76 Deluxe is also more than 130% brighter than a typical 2" (50mm) astro scope.

Also well within range are the rings of Saturn and Jupiter's four largest moons. Further out, the Infinity can zero in on the Great Orion nebula and the giant M31 galaxy in Andromeda.

Passing the beer test

The Infinity also passes the beer test - sitting in the garden in a chair cradling the telescope while cracking a can or two.

The Infinity 76 Deluxe is ready-to-go straight out of the box just by screwing in the eyepiece that delivers 30x magnification.

A tabletop stand allows smooth moving around the sky, even down to the horizon.

The telescope is great for hand-held scoping around the sky like handling binoculars.

It comes with a snap-on dust cap and an attractive box that doubles as a carrying case

For less experienced sky gazers, the package comes complete with a star compass, an astronomy guide by Sir Patrick Moore and a collection of stickers to customise the case.

What's more the price is just right for a Christmas or birthday present for a youngster - certainly the Infinity 76 can be found for less than £50, and on special offer at almost half that!

Specifications:

* Magnification: 30x

* Primary mirror diameter: 76mm

* Focal length: 300mm (f/4)

* Eyepiece supplied: 1 x 30x

SKYWATCHER 200P EQ 5 8 NEWTONIAN TELESCOPE    £153.79

Skywatcher 9mm Ultrawide Eyepiece 125    £29.99

SKYWATCHER SKYLINER 200P FLEXTUBE GO TO TELESCOPENEW    £799.00

SKYWATCHER SKYLINER 250PX FLEXTUBE GO TO TELESCOPENEW    £999.00

SKYWATCHER SKYLINER 300P FLEXTUBE GO TO TELESCOPE NEW    £1,399.00

Skywatcher Skymax 90 Tabletop Telescope    £110.00

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Experienced astronomers realise that the mount is just as, if sometimes not more important, than the telescope.

Unstable mounts make a telescope useless because they cannot deliver quality images. The larger the telescope – especially a reflector telescope – the more important the mount becomes.

Testing the mount
A good indicator of mount performance is the ‘damp down factor’ or the time an image takes for vibrations to disappear after refocus or movement of the telescope. A good rule of thumb is more than five seconds is not acceptable. Also, the bigger your telescope the more sturdy your mount should be. If you have a massive reflector, you don’t want all your gear to blow over in the slightest breeze. Stability and portability have a trade-off, so you need to find a happy medium that suits your viewing needs and budget.

What sort of mount?
Most astronomers want a portable telescope – so size matters and it’s often said the larger the telescope, the less it’s used. Mounts come in several types:

Alt-azimuth mounts – the simplest and most basic mount that gives both up and down and left to right movement.

Dobsonian mounts – A dual pivot mount generally with a Newtonian telescope that gives the same movement as an alt-azimuth mount

Driven alt-azimuth mounts – These can connect with a computer and have a motor to track objects across the sky

Equatorial mounts – these come as manual or motorised. If you have an option go motorised. An equatorial mount tracks the apparent motion of the stars by aligning and axes parallel to the spinning of the Earth.
Upgrading the mount

Digital setting circles (DSCs) work on all azimuth and equatorial mounts is an electronic triangulation system for accurately pointing your telescope at the precise position of an object in the sky.

Go-to drives
Go-to drives are an upgrade of the mount DSC upgrade – a motor attached to a DSC that automates the sky-seeking operation of a DSC. Some are linked to sat-navs that give optimal power control and movement of the telescope.

T T2 mount for Nikon D40x D50 D70 D80 D200 D300 D700 D3    £19.99

T T2 Mount for Canon 450D 500D 550D 1000D 40D 50D 5D 7D    £19.99

T T2 mount for Nikon D3s D60 D90 D300s D3000 D5000 D40    £19.99

234 Power 60MM 700MM Altazimuth Mount Refractor Scope    £30.00

Orion Apex 90mm Maksutov on EQ1 tabletop driven mount    £60.09

Meade LXD55 Autostar GOTO mount and EQ6 tripod    £83.00

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