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Choosing Your Telescope's Magnification

by Al Nagler

Observing Experience Cartoon
The complete observing experience involves several impediments that lie between the starry heavens and the view we have of them. These include the atmosphere, telescope optical system, and our eye.
Sky & Telescope illustration by Kevin Sartoris.
How high can you get? How low can you go? The answers depend on many factors that combine to give each telescope a useful magnification range. This range is not fixed, however, and depends on the nature of eyesight, the telescope's aperture and optical design, atmospheric conditions, and even the type and size of the object looked at.

Consider the complete viewing experience: starlight passes through the atmosphere, through the telescope, and finally into your eyes. Each segment of the journey plays a role in determining the magnification range to use on a given night with a given telescope. Let's take up the segments separately.

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