Use Your Meade Telescope To View Planets & Deep Sky Objects

One of the first things you may be wondering are…

"What objects can I see if I purchase a Meade Telescope?"

Man with Meade Telescope Well, it depends on the Meade telescope you select, but just about all the Meade telescope models allow you to see the following. Now keep in mind there are thousands of more objects you can view (including the orbiting Space Station) besides the ones listed here. I doubt if you ever run out of things to explore, after all, the Universe is large beyond comprehension!

Use Your Meade Telescope to View Our Moon and Planets in Our Solar System

	The Moon is, on average, a distance of 239,000 miles (380,000km) from Earth and is best observed during its crescent or half phase when Sunlight strikes the Moon’s surface at an angle. It casts shadows and adds a sense of depth to the view. No shadows are seen during a full Moon, causing the overly bright Moon to appear flat and rather uninteresting through the telescope. Brilliant detail can be observed on the Moon, including hundreds of lunar craters and maria, described below.
	Craters are round meteor impact sites covering most of the Moon’s surface. With no atmosphere on the Moon, no weather conditions exist, so the only erosive force is meteor strikes. Under these conditions, lunar craters can last for millions of years. As you can see, you can get enlarged images with your Meade telescope.
	Maria (plural for mare) are smooth, dark areas scattered across the lunar surface. These dark areas are large ancient impact basins that were filled with lava from the interior of the Moon by the depth and force of a meteor or comet impact. The Apollo astronauts left their bootprints on the Moon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. However, no telescope on Earth is able to see these footprints or any other artifacts. In fact, the smallest lunar features that may be seen with the largest telescope on Earth are about one-half mile across.
	Venus is about nine-tenths the diameter of Earth. As Venus orbits the Sun, observers can see it go through phases (crescent, half, and full) much like those of the Moon. The disk of Venus appears white as Sunlight is reflected off the thick cloud cover that completely obscures any surface detail.
	Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, and appears through the telescope as a tiny reddish-orange disk. It may be possible to see a hint of white at one of the planet’s Polar ice caps. Approximately every two years, when Mars is closest to Earth in its orbit, additional detail and coloring on the planet’s surface may be visible.
	Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and is 11 times the diameter of Earth. The planet appears as a disk with dark lines stretching across the surface. These lines are cloud bands in the atmosphere. Four of Jupiter’s 16 moons (lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) can be seen as “star-like” points of light when using even the lowest magnification. These moons orbit Jupiter so that the number of moons visible on any given night changes as they circle around the giant planet.
	Saturn is nine times the diameter of Earth and appears as a small, round disk with rings extending out from either side. In 1610, Galileo, the first person to observe Saturn through a telescope, did not understand that what he was seeing were rings. Instead, he believed that Saturn had “ears’. Saturn’s rings are composed of billions of ice particles ranging in size from a speck of dust to the size of a house. The major division in Saturn’s rings, called the Cassini Division, is occasionally visible. Titan, the largest of Saturn’s 18 moons can also be seen as a bright, star-like object near the planet.

You Can Also Use Your Meade Telescope To View Many Deep-Sky Objects

	Stars are large gaseous objects that are self-illuminated by nuclear fusion in their core. Because of their vast distances from our solar system, all stars appear as pinpoints of light, irrespective of the size of the telescope used.
	Nebulae are vast interstellar clouds of gas and dust where stars are formed. Most impressive of these is the Great Nebula in Orion (M42), a diffuse nebula that appears as a faint wispy gray cloud. M42 is 1600 light years from Earth.
	Open Clusters are loose groupings of young stars, all recently formed from the same diffuse nebula. The Pleiades is an open cluster 410 light years away.
	Constellations are large, imaginary patterns of stars believed by ancient civilizations to be the celestial equivalent of objects, animals, people, or gods. These patterns are too large to be seen through a telescope. To learn the constellations, start with an easy grouping of stars, such as the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. Then, use a star chart to explore across the sky.
	Galaxies are large assemblies of stars, nebulae, and star clusters that are bound by gravity. The most common shape is spiral (such as our own Milky Way), but galaxies can also be elliptical, or even irregular blobs. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the closest spiral-type galaxy to our own. This galaxy appears fuzzy and cigar-shaped. It is 2.2 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda.