Looking through a telescope for the first time is special. We at Telescoop.co.uk experienced it once too. You expect a bright universe, but also sometimes get a faint point of light or even nothing at all. This is normal. Stargazing is a combination of optics, expectations and (atmospheric) conditions. Those are simply the weather conditions & quality in the sky, very simply put. In this comprehensive guide, you'll find answers to the questions most often asked, from focusing to cosmic distances.

Why can't I see anything through my telescope?

The cause is usually easy to fix.
The focuser is often incorrect; beginners turn too quickly and shoot past the focus point. Use a 25 mm eyepiece first: it gives a large field of view and makes it easier to find objects. Remember that the sky moves. At higher magnifications, everything slips out of focus faster and you have to adjust. In the city, light pollution comes into play: planets and the moon are no problem, but nebulae quickly disappear in the glow.

Can I see planets during the day?

It can be done, but it's tricky. You have to know exactly where the planet is and stay far away from the sun. With a well-tuned telescope and a planetarium app, you can find it, but it is not a recommended exercise for beginners.

Can you see planets with a homemade telescope?

Yes, as long as the optics are good. A simple homemade 50 mm refractor can already show the moons of Jupiter. But commercial telescopes are more stable, give sharper images and are easier to adjust. So you see more detail and experience less frustration.

Which telescope is suitable for stars?

For moon and planets, a 70-90 mm refractor will do just fine.
For deep-sky objects such as nebulae and star clusters, light output makes all the difference. Reflectors from 130-150 mm show the Orion Nebula or a faint bright spot of Andromeda. Those who like to photograph soon end up with smart telescopes that automatically stack exposures.

What is the difference between a stargazer and a telescope?

The terms are used interchangeably. In stores, “stargazer” often means a simple beginner's refractor. “Telescope” is used for all optical systems: refractors, reflectors, Dobsons, catadioptric systems and smart telescopes.

What is the best way to look at the moon?

Start with low magnification. A 25 mm eyepiece gives overview, then you can scale up to 10 mm or 6 mm. A moon filter will make the image calmer for your eyes. Focus on the terminator, the dividing line between light and dark: that's where you see craters, shadows and mountains best.

What does “13 billion light years” mean?

A light year is the distance light travels in a year. If you see a galaxy 13 billion light years away, you see it as it looked 13 billion years ago. So you are literally looking back in time, to the early universe just after the Big Bang.

Does that distant object still exist now?

We don't know. The light we receive now left billions of years ago. In that time, a galaxy can collide, change or even disappear. Still, the light is valuable: it tells what the young universe looked like.

How can a telescope see such ancient objects?

Professional telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope look in infrared light. That penetrates dust clouds better and reveals faint, ancient light that otherwise remains invisible. This allows astronomers to recognize details from the early universe.

Many beginners expect that “being able to see far” has mainly to do with magnification. In practice, it's almost entirely about light output: how much light the telescope can collect. This is determined by the opening (the diameter of the lens or mirror). A larger aperture catches more light and therefore shows fainter objects. You can always change magnification by using a different eyepiece; light output is fixed.

Therefore, it is more realistic to describe What you see in practice per opening.

70-90 mm telescopes (entry level)

With a telescope in this class, you see mainly bright and high-contrast objects:

• The moon with sharp craters and shadows, especially along the terminator.
• Jupiter with four moons (Unicorn stripes are visible, but subtle).
• Saturn with ring, as a small but clearly recognizable oval shape.
• Bright open star clusters such as the Pleiades or the Double Cluster.
• Some double stars that can be neatly split.

Deep-sky objects (such as nebulae) are often visible, but very faint and with no clear shape. The Andromeda galaxy appears as a misty haze, without structure or core.

130-150 mm telescopes (the real “all-rounder” for beginners)

In this range, deep-sky really begins to come alive:

• The Orion Nebula shows a clear central spot of light with pointings of fan-shaped bulges.
• Globular clusters show up as granular clusters (with a center that gradually lights up).
• Andromeda is more visible and has a more defined core, especially under dark skies.
• Furthermore, you can discover fainter open star clusters, and food-rich star fields in the Milky Way.

Planets also benefit from the extra aperture: Saturn's Cassini line sometimes becomes visible under good seeing and Jupiter shows multiple band structures.

This is the size that many amateur astronomers consider to be minimum deep-sky telescope consider.

200 mm and larger (serious amateur class)

Telescopes around 200 mm (such as popular Dobsons) show a fundamentally different level of detail:

• Structures in nebulae become visible: dark bands, different brightness zones, sometimes even subtle differences in shape.
• Globular clusters can be “individuated” - you see individual stars at the edge of the cluster.
• Spiral galaxies that normally appear only as haze now show indications of arms, especially under dark skies.
• Planetary nebulae show ring shapes or shell structures.

Planets also benefit greatly: Jupiter becomes rich in detail, with complex cloud bands and turbulent structures, and under ideal conditions even the Great Red Spot.

Space telescopes (professional domain)

Space telescopes such as Hubble and James Webb operate outside the atmosphere and can therefore capture extremely dim light. These telescopes do not “see” distance in kilometers, but rather time:

• Webb records light from more than 13 billion years old, coming from galaxies of the early universe.
• The observations are possible because these telescopes operate in multiple light spectra, including infrared and ultraviolet.

These kinds of achievements are totally incomparable to amateur telescopes but they provide context: when you look at Andromeda, you are already looking 2.5 million years back in time.

Additional questions that many beginners struggle with

Why do objects appear smaller in my telescope than in photographs?

Astrophotos are the result of long exposure times, in which a camera collects light for many seconds or minutes and digitally amplifies that light. Your eye cannot do that: biologically, an eye image “refreshes” several times per second. As a result:

• details remain subtle
• you almost always see shades of gray
• objects appear smaller because your brain cannot build the image

So when you look through the telescope, you see the raw, unfiltered universe. In pictures you can see the stacked and processed universe.

This is why a nebula is dim and soft in the eyepiece, but bright and colorful in photographs. Both are real, but they show different aspects of the same object.

How do I find objects in the sky as a beginner?

Finding objects manually remains a challenge, even for experienced amateurs. The sky moves, star patterns look similar, and faint objects are barely visible to the naked eye.

Therefore, almost all beginners and advanced students use a tool:

• Planetarium apps such as Stellarium or SkySafari
• A red-dot finder or viewfinder telescope
• Or for Dobsons: a smartphone holder or digital push-to technology

Smart telescopes completely take over this process. You choose an object in the app and the telescope automatically looks it up. This greatly lowers the barrier to entry and prevents a lot of frustration in the first few months.

Does higher magnification always make sense for deep-sky?

No and this is one of the most common misunderstandings.
Magnification makes the image bigger, but also darker. Deep-sky objects are often extremely faintly dim. Too much magnification “spreads out” that tiny bit of light over a larger area, causing the object to disappear.

Therefore, these rules practically always work:

• low magnification = more light, better overview
• medium magnification = ideal for nebulae and star clusters
• high magnification = useful only for small, bright objects such as planets or compact planetary nebulae

A large telescope does have the ability to magnify more without losing detail, simply because it collects more light.

How bad is light pollution?

Light pollution affects each object differently:

Planets and the moon

Here it hardly matters. These objects are bright and remain visible even in the middle of the city.

Deep-sky objects

Here, light pollution acts like a blanket. Nebulae such as the Veil Nebula, Orion Nebula or the Horsehead Nebula almost completely disappear under city light.
Galaxies are even more sensitive: many simply become invisible in urban areas.

A dark place radically changes the experience. An object that looks like a blurred spot in the city often shows clear structure in the dark.

What objects can I see year-round?

Part of the sky rotates with the Earth seasonally, but a number of objects are almost always visible:

• The moon (cycle of 29.5 days but always recurring)
• Double stars such as Albireo and Castor
• Open star clusters such as the Pleiades (in the right season) and the Hyades
• The brightest planets, depending on their position in orbit

Deep-sky objects are highly seasonal. The Orion Nebula is typical winter object; the Summer Triangle belongs to July-August. An observing calendar is therefore very useful.

Why does my telescope need to cool down first?

Many beginners think the image is “bad” because they are doing something wrong. In reality, it is often because the telescope warmer than the outside air. The air in the tube then moves like a heat wave, just like over asphalt on a summer day.

Those air currents make the image soft, vibrant and unsettled.
Once the telescope has the same temperature as the environment, those vortices disappear. The result is a much more stable and sharp image.

Reflectors suffer the most from this because they have a large air volume. Refractors cool down much faster.

Why do I only see white light when I look at the moon?

The moon is bright, really much brighter than beginners expect.
A telescope collects that light and focuses it, sometimes causing you to see so much glare that details disappear.

A moon filter attenuates light and gives your eyes the peace of mind to discern craters, shadows and mountains.

Why does everything spin out of focus even if I don't touch anything?

Because the earth rotates.
What you see in the eyepiece moves at about 15 arcseconds per second. At low magnification this is not too bad, but at 150× or more a planet sometimes slides out of view within 20-30 seconds.

That's normal! It does not mean that your telescope “does not stay properly aimed.”.
Higher magnification always requires regular adjustments.

Why can I see some stars well see with the naked eye but not through my telescope?

That feels contradictory, but it has a logical reason.
Your telescope has a small field of view: sometimes the star is visible, but just outside your eyepiece.
Another reason is that the telescope may not be in proper focus, or the eyepiece used is giving too much magnification. Too much magnification makes a star weaker rather than stronger.

Why is everything suddenly blurry when I blow out my breath?

Very simple: condensation.
As soon as you breathe close to the eyepiece, the lenses fog up. That looks like your telescope is suddenly defective, but it's just moisture.
Waiting for a while, warming eyepiece slightly with your hands, or using a dew cap will prevent this.

Why is the image shaking?

A telescope can be perfect, but if the mount wobbles, you see little. Causes:

• a light tripod that moves with every touch
• too high magnification for the conditions
• wind or resonance of the surface (e.g., balcony)

A sturdy tripod or Dobson-base solves this faster than a new eyepiece.

What if you do want images like on the Internet?

Visual viewing remains wonderful, but it has limits.
If you want more: color, texture, visible nebular arms, details in galaxies, then you have exposure time needed. That means astrophotography.

Smart telescopes such as the Seestar S50 and DWARF 3 automate this process:

• they look for objects themselves
• they automatically follow
• they stack images so that color and structure build up
• they correct errors such as vibrations or light clouds

Where a beginner's refractor shows Andromeda as a gray spot, a smart telescope shows a picture the same evening with core, halo and subtle dust trails.