5 Unrealistic Expectations of Beginning Amateur Astronomers!

I know I am quite late responding here, but I didn't discover this channel earlier. First of all I can only agree to what you said in several of your videos I have watched recently. I am someone who is "relatively new" in this hobby. More than twenty years in the past, I went with one of my best friends who owned a quite large dobson (for my understanding, when you have difficulties looking through the eyepiece when the telescope had to be pointed nearly vertical). I enjoyed that time, bought my son a small beginners set with somekind of a 102mm Newton (with a lot of the issues you pointed out in your recommendations). But ... we had a lot of fun with it anyway. Bought some filter material and we could even look at the sun (and we're not blind today). Seems like we didn't do it totally wrong. Then I dreamed a long long time, having my own (bigger) equipment. Today I make some experiences with a 203mm/1000mm Newton, which I got borrowed from my son, since he has not used it for a long time. The first thing my spouse and I looked at was the moon. And we were impressed by its beauty. We both agree that the phases of the moon are far more interesting than the full moon. Next we "discovered" Saturn because it sat on a reachable position in the sky (yes we making the mistake of observing out of our flat). But I need this actually to get in touch with mount, scope and eyepieces. I even corrected a mechanical error of the mount (too much play in the RA, scope was wobbling after each turn on the knob). Jupiter followed next and then Venus and we even got somekind of a glimpse at M31 Andromeda (yes it's somekind of a "milky ellipse", but we could see it).We are planning to get outside in the near future. Hoping for clear nights, but winter is coming which will be a good time to look into the sky. By working with the telescope I made a lot of "discoveries" that you have pointed out in your videos. For example not always taking the eyepiece with the most "power" (magnification?) but going a step back using a 21mm wideangle instead of the 5mm Plössl. I like your videos, you have a nice way to explain all the stuff. Keep up the good work!

Just tell me how to look at the sky and not have it hurt my neck Ed!!!!

We have been getting good images using ASIair and a dslr on medium sized SCT on a GEM. Typically 30 second exposures look good on the tablet. I was going to see if downsizing to a Mak90 still works. The SeeStar is coming out soon and Dwarf Labs is already on the market. The investment is thousands in the first case and less than $1,000 for SeeStar

To set things straight.
If you want Hubble images, try Google.😂

My two cents worth - the unreasonable expectations of beginners is to some degree the fault of more advanced astronomers. For example, they always describe an upcoming meteor shower as "going to be spectacular." So people go out expecting to see a fireworks display. To seasoned astronomers, yes, 100 meteors per hour is spectacular compared to the normal 5 or 10 per hour. But that's not what everyday Joe means by spectacular. To him, a meteor shower - even 200/hr - is only slightly less boring than a normal night sky.
The terminology used to get the public excited about a conjunction of planets or the appearance of a comet (especially comets!) or a view of, say, Andromeda galaxy always leaves a beginner disappointed. Comets, like galaxies, are just teeny dim fuzzballs in modest sized telescopes, not the blazing explosion of light revealed by James Webb. Newbies don't know that. A conjunction of Saturn and Mars commands only a couple minutes of, "Oh yeah, I see it" reaction from average man-on-the-street. It's not the "stunning" or "brilliant" or "mind blowing" experience described by the head of the astronomy department from the local college on the evening news.
Beginners bring their own interest in the field; it can't be injected into them by veteran astronomers. I suggest we tone it down and direct interested new stargazers to join a star party or club instead of setting them up to be turned off.

My favorite, Can I see the flag on the moon? I always wanted to say Not no, but hell no!
But we must be nice to the public at the star party.
I was lucky. Went to a star party when I was new and the guys there were so nice and helpful. Spent hundreds of hours with them and enjoyed every minute.
After spending MANY thousands of dollars, drove hundreds of miles and staying up all night, many people I showed things 10-15 years ago still remember and thank me. That makes it all worth while. Hopefully just one kid that came to a public event will get into an Astro related science. The child I remember the best was a little girl in a bright yellow dress. She came with a large group of little girls. Naturally I forgot my kiddy ladder that night so if they were too short and had no parent you had to tell them what to look for then lift them up. She came through the line a dozen times and was thrilled each time. She said thanks mister, that really something and went to another line. I was dragging after two or so hours and 40 kids. But it was fun!

Piece of FEECAL MATTTTER!!!

800 d eyepiece???!!!!!!: BULLSHITTTT!!!!!!!!!

I have Meade 4500.114mm 910mm..nice

I've just discovered your channel and I like it enough to subscribe, great real world content, I'll be bing watching, thanks and best wishes.

My first telescope experience ever was ( I still have it ) a 60mm refractor. Nothing special, slightly better than department store junk but boy oh boy, it still is the most important view I ever experienced to the night sky. It started the hobby for me, the first look to the moon and Saturn that was instant love. Today I am still a smaller equipment user, 127mm/1200 focal length refractor and a Skywatcher 102mm/600 focal length refractor. And boy what a satisfaction when I see Andromeda galaxy ( part of it with my equipment as the field of view must be enormous to catch Andromeda 100% ) , a grey/white fuzzy blob. But the longer you keep focused in the dark the more you see, realizing that I watch to another galaxy, that is insane. Light as we know it and we can observe with our eyes is insane! I am planning to buy myself a nice Dobson 8' or 10', must have that experience as well, but the best telescope is the one that is portable, 'grab and go'. The little Skywatcher 102mm is not bad at all for around 279,00 Euro's OTA of course. Maybe a nice APO-chromat one day, priceyyyyyyyyyyy stuff but must have :)

Lot of wisdom here. I love this guy. So don't listen to me, listen to him. However I will be honest. I am a weird nerd and I went straight into AP coz I am pretty handy with a laptop and I love platesolving! It's magic. I wish I enjoyed visual more and I do have 40mm 2 inch televue EP and some other nice EPs but it just does not do it for me. What makes me happy are the stacked images of Jupiter and the Narrow band images of M42 etc that take me a weekend to process. As you said, Nightscapes are a nice affordable option if you don't mind driving and have a dslr. Clear skys Sir!

Great advice Ed. Although I do have a fully computerised imaging set up, I still enjoy finding deep sky objects and comets with a pair of binoculars and a star atlas even though though they look like fuzzy blobs. I guese its the sense of achievement. Love watching meteor showers (weather permitting) too

As someone just getting into the hobby, I, too, had a little bit different idea about the reality of what I’d see through a telescope.

However, I have yet to invest in my first telescope. I’ve been binge-watching a lot of videos and reading articles about telescope basics, physical characteristics and capabilities of the different types and sizes of scopes, etc. This has helped tremendously, and I am confident that when I finally choose the telescope I’m going to use, it won’t be a disappointment. I know what to expect.

Videos such as yours have been very educational, sir!

I’m leaning toward an 8” Celestron or Orion DOB, but haven’t ruled out the 5-6 inch realm just yet (considering Celestron Starsense Explorer DX-130 as well, and the Orion XT6 DOB .. although, I’ve heard your opinion on the plastic focusing knobs.). 👍

So, still doing my research!

Oh yeah, have listened to your videos on eye pieces and was some good learning there, too! Really been helpful, thanks!

Are you seriously saying that all $200 telescopes are junnk? Seriously..?

Very interesting

I have now been stargazing for about 20 months and have learned a thing or two since. Yet I wholeheartedly agree with what Ed often says, go join an Astronomy Club, if I had done that at first I would have saved money and aggravation. My club will loan members a telescope and what a great way to find out if you like something. Also they have stargazes for public outreach including Solar Outreaches and now I'm saving to get a Hydrogen-Alpha setup after looking at the Sun through one. I want something able to double as a regular night scope so a Daystar Quark in my 102 refractor.

I'm placing the question here since I'm a very, very beginner with little time to look around... Please help, what is a Coma Corrector ? I have a 10" dob from explore scientific firstlight... Focal Length 1270mm, Focal Ratio f/5, Primary Mirror Diameter 254mm, Secondary Obstruction 24%

I have graduated from planet viewing and want to be able to see more.

Again, thank you very much for the plethora of information on your videos.

Thanks a lot for your videos Ed. I totally agree about what you say about visual astronomy.
Cheers from France

Thanks Ed for all your videos, they are so helpful and educational. Have you written any books on amateur astronomy?

Love and respect from India

I was the opposite... I first ever saw saturn through a cheap6 inch newt.. it was very small, used low power, (higher power was full of coma on that scope anyway) but the rings were clear to be seen.... I was blown away. I wasnt expecting big closeups, I just wanted to know it was saturn and I found it
I didnt actually, up to that point, even take much notice that a bright dot in the sky is actually another planet

Thank you so much for making these video’s. Through a bit of luck bought my family at 16” Dobsonian and we watched the moon. Yes it’s spectacular, kids loved it. I had the expectation to make pictures of planets, the moon and some nebulas and galaxies so bought some adapters to connect my camera but will slow this Astro photography down a bit. Also I planed to buy a system to locate and track objects in the sky but now have a better understanding of what I will get. Thanks, will prevent us from having some expensive disappointments.

You know what... this hobby sounds like it's more trouble then then the results are worth... I thought it would be real cool, but I'll pass

Got a celestron 114az for Christmas from my wife. Set it up during the day I sighted it in on a tree like miles away saw the birds perfectly. Then that night the first object we pointed it at turned out to be Jupiter, it's been a fun start to a hobby that it turns out we both enjoy!

Great information. Like one of the other commenters, I got turned on to the hobby when I saw Neowise through a pair of binoculars I bought for nature watching. I did a fair amount of research on the web before I bought my first scope, a Celestron Nexstar 8SE. When I saw Saturn and Jupiter, I was hooked. The only unreasonable expectation that I had was that the photo processing of my DSLR of my stacked images would be easy. I've improved a little since I've started; however, I have a long and adventurous journey ahead.

My earliest experience with astronomy was in my pre-teen years. After my parents got me a children’s book on the stars and the planets, I was always intrigued in seeing things for myself. I frequently watched the moon with my dad’s 8X30 pair of binoculars, and that truly got me hooked. A real bit of science came when I created an odd makeshift “tripod” for that pair of binoculars and started documenting the position of Jupiter’s large moons on a daily basis. I made simple drawings of those and compared them with my nephew’s observations (through an antique brass telescope, lucky kid he was!). That caught the attention of our physics teacher, who invited us in front of the class to elaborate on that “true piece of science”, as he called it.
Much later, after having gazed at those mysterious blue tubes, I decided to buy a Meade ETX90 (yes, I did). A bit whobbly, true, but it brought me tons of pleasure: moon views are excellent, it clearly shows the broader bands on Jupiter, and yes! Saturn HAS rings.
Even later, I promoted to a very solid Meade LX90 (SC version) and that brought me (amongst many other views) the most amazing view of M13. I still remember the exact place and time. Astonishing.

I got started in this hobby back in 2020. I bought a pair of binoculars (7x50) to try to see comet NEOWISE. I didn't, but the binoculars showed me so much when I looked through them that left me in awe. Not only that, they taught me to navigate the night sky. Next, I found a $10 retractor at a local thrift store (70 mm). It was missing some things, but it wasn't hard (or expensive) to get it to work. That telescope made it for us all in my family. Will never forget the first time I saw Jupiter and Saturn through the eyepiece. Thanks for the great content and advice.

One time at a dark sky site, an excited beginner showed up and set his department store scope next to me and kindly asked if I could show him how to use it. There's nothing I love more than to help out a beginner but sadly his scope was hopeless, we just couldn't get a satisfying experience let alone a good view. He ended up giving up and spent the entire time looking through mine and marvelling which is what his experience should have been through his scope to begin with. This young fellow left deflated and feeling like he didn't even want to take his scope back home, I was heartbroken for the fellow. Department store telescopes should be banned, they do nothing for our hobby, in fact they do more damage than good. One disheartening factor was that it was hard to convince him that he didn't need a TSA-102 to enjoy the hobby, yet the experienced observer helping him had one. It was difficult to explain that he didn't need to spend that much.

Very effective narration. Easy to listen to. Well chosen words clearly delivered. Oh, and packed with extremely useful information! Thank you.

Hi Ed, you may have said it and I missed it, but my experience would indicate that your "1/2 weight of mount realistic capacity" isn't correct for some of the better mounts. For example, an AP900 weighs about 38 pounds, 48 with the counterweight shaft attached, but it will handle for imaging more than 24 pounds just fine. Similar numbers would apply to a Paramount MEII, and others.

Hi Ed, great Video. However, I can tell from my own experience, that astrophotography is not THAT far out of reach for beginners to the hobby. Due to the amazing technology of digital cameras, you can do a lot with a little these days. Even an unmodified beginner DSLR with a good lens (not even a telescope needed to start) can yield surprisingly good results. The key are three things: manage your expectations (don't think of hubble quality images), find suitable bright&large targets (Orion nebula, Pleiades) and finally use the right software (Deep Sky Staker, APP etc.). If you don't have a tracking mount, use short exposures and high ISO and simply take hundreds of pictures. Software will do the magic of adding those up for you. Of course, this can only take you so far, but much farther than most people think. And along the way you learn a lot that might get you into the rabbit hole that you mentioned😉.
I started out with a simple consumer DSLR attached to a home made barndoor mount that I cranked by hand every 5 seconds. Of course the results were shaky and blurry, but seeing the Orion nebula show up on the display of your camera was simply amazing. After that, I got into adding a motor to the barndoor tracker, learned the software aspect, improved the design further until finally I started using a telescope and mount... Here comes your rabbit hole again🙂

Great video, Ed! Do you think the same 'limits' apply to the newer harmonic drive mounts for amateur astrophotographers? I purchased a ZWO AM5 recently and was curious what you thought about the recommended 13 Kg with no counterweights, and 20 Kg with counterweights. (The counterweights being necessary for balancing the entire rig, so it doesn't tip, not necessarily for helping reduce the strain on the mount's gears -- so they say.)

Very nice review, thanks Ed!

Great video, when you talked about expectations at the end that hit home for me. At the eyepiece I was thinking I'd see something more impressive like the images on the box. Jupiter appeared like a pea if at all lol.

I didn't reckon with so much vibration from my mount and telescope, although I only have a Heritage 130P, which is fairly flimsy. Also, I found it impossible to stop condensation (from my breath) forming on my eyepiece even though I wrapped a scarf around my nose and mouth. However, seeing the full moon in so much detail was unforgettable, as was somewhat blurry images of Mars and Jupiter. I had to keep wiping the eyepiece every few seconds lol, and then waiting for the vibrations to settle.

Yes, I was hoping to see detailed spiral galaxies and colorful nebulae. When my 8" reflector didn't produce the results, I kpet reading hwo the main purpose of a telescoe si not magnificatio, but to gather light, so that the more light to be gathered, the brighter the image. I then started dreaming about the biggest telescope I could find. Then i stumbled across the concept fo exit pupil determining brightness, so I thought, OK, I'll find a big telescope and long eyepieces. Fortunately, I finally found someone saying no, exit pupil bigger than your eye pupil (about 6mm) didn't result in a birghter image, and that no passive telescope could make an image brighter than it appeared naked-eye. This was a shock to me, but I'm glad I found out before I went crazy buying ridiculous gear.

Re weight claims, do you believe the likes of Astro-Physics or 10Micron?

I just want to see the moon with amazing clarity through a scope and maybe, just maybe see Saturns rings, I'm wanting to get a telescope in the 2-300 range, I'm on a fixed income so money is tight.

I'm out here giving meaning to the term night owl and the stars know it 💡

Love your video's. Keep looking up.

I'm still waiting to have my first views through a telescope, but I've been spending a LOT of time watching these beginner guide videos. I think my expectations are about as low as they can possibly be at this point hahaha, jk jk I understand at this point and am very excited at the idea of being able to locate objects for the sake of the adventure and not the idea of how big or clear they would look. I get it, it's not going to be like a Hubble shot of Jupiter :) and that's okay. This journey for me is more about bonding with my family, especially my ten year old son and learning about space!

Hello Ed, thanks for the video. I've been looking now for about 35 years, and yes I love the tabletop photos, but that dim smudge of light at the eyepiece turns my crank more than any photo ever will. Again thank you as I appreciate your perspective on gear and astronomy.

I would recommend those starting out to purchase what your budget can afford, but research and read some reviews of the product under consideration, and decide for yourself. Too many people come to astronomy forums with advice to buy the expensive stuff like Tele-Vue eyepieces or scopes without ever considering the cost involved. This hobby can get expensive real fast. Right now I'm having a blast using a Meade Adventure Scope 80 with some budget eyepieces that I am very happy with. Had I purchased some Tele-Vue eyepieces or an expensive scope based on some of the advice in forums like these and decided not to continue the hobby, it would do greater damage to the hobby than any department store gadget ever could, because it appears snobbish to recommend only the expensive name brands to newbies. Recommend good budget alternatives with advice to move up to the expensive stuff after they are established or in my case hooked, and have realistic expectations of what can be seen. My 2¢.

To view objects through a telescope you must have good eyesight without astigmatism. Not only will you not see sharp images but looking up at the night sky to find small objects is compromised. Naturally good eyesight is essential for better equipment.

As far as newbies go, I think this video was almost complete. A link on how to fully do an alignment would be fully beneficial. All steps shown and not just described. I have been into this hobby since high school some 40+ years ago. With all the changes to support equipment since then, everything I used then has been replaced. Each has its own learning curve as you described. Let’s show how to’s. That would make your video complete.

I'm in astrophotography since 2 years. It's a hell of a hobby. 🤣

Totally agree Ed. Have the nexstar 8se with starsense. Many frustrating nights getting it to work. The main attribute to this hobby, other than deep pockets, is patience. When all goes well, it's a site you'll never forget.