A Space Odyssey

	A Galaxy Awaits

Back in 1609, Galileo gazed into the Italian night sky from his backyard.

With his handmade telescope trained on Jupiter, he managed to spy what he thought were four new stars moving around the Jovian sphere, itself considered a star at the time.

But those stars turned out to be four large moons, and their sighting caused Galileo to turn the world upside down, leading him to challenge the very notion of our planet's place in the universe.

These days, with a decent pair of binoculars -- even in a major metropolis like New York City -- you can see the very things that Galileo saw and more.

Perhaps with a telescope of your own, you'll make a discovery that will turn your own world upside down.

Star Struck

There's no experience like seeing mountains on the moon, polar ice caps on Mars, the great red spot on Jupiter or even the rings of Saturn firsthand.

All these natural wonders are easily spotted with a beginner's telescope, retailing well under $1,000. But soon, like an addict, you'll be craving more: asteroids, comets and what are known as deep-sky objects -- nebulas, galaxies, double stars, and my favorite, globular clusters.

And all of these wonders are visible from your own backyard if you know where to point your scope.

There are two approaches to stargazing.

There is the old-fashioned way, taking the time to learn the positions of the constellations and using them as reference points to find your galactic quarry -- similar to looking at a map before a road trip.

Then there's the newer, armchair approach, which is to buy one of the widely available robotic, or GoTo, telescopes, and let the telescope drive you to your destination -- like a galactic GPS.

Actually, there is heated debate within the amateur stargazer community about the use of such robotic scopes.

First, the word "robotic" is a bit of a misnomer. These telescopes are actually fitted with a small computer that is loaded with the contents of the night sky. You enter the name of the object you wish to see, and the telescope automatically directs itself there. All you have to do is look.

So what's wrong with that? Detractors say that this removes the fun and adventure -- not to mention the wonder that stems from decoding the sky -- and deprives the viewer of a sense of accomplishment. Why not just watch a TV show on planets?

There is something to be said for learning the position of the stars, of observing the cycling of the planets and knowing where north lies just by looking up. However, there are times when it's nice to just tap in a name and get a perfect view of the Crab Nebula.

If you're good at reading maps, self-motivated and bit of an adventurer, you'll do fine with manually finding night-sky objects. However, if you'd rather drive an automatic instead of a standard, or if you like all-inclusive vacations, the GoTo scopes will be a perfect fit.

Scoping the Scene

Whatever your predilection, there's certainly a telescope for you.

	The Crab Nebula

It's common for beginners to think, "I want a telescope that magnifies 1,000 times!" While that sounds impressive, magnification is not the most important feature.

The single factor that most determines how many objects you will be able to see is the aperture of the scope, or the telescope's light-gathering ability.

What a beginner would refer to as the lens of the scope -- the business end that points at the stars -- is really called the objective. The bigger the objective, the more light is taken into the scope and the more objects you can see, even very dim ones.

And what are dim objects?

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