Sonequa Martin-Green, Well Known To Genre Fans For Her Role On AMC’s Mega-hit The Walking Dead, Has

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Hey there! I'm an amateur astronomer and I'm looking at saving $400-600 on a telescope, what do you think would be better, a refractor or reflector? I'm willing to carry it in my car and traveling wherever I can to get good images to observe.

Hi! That’s great that you’re looking in to getting a telescope!

Overall, reflector telescopes are better than refractor telescopes. I have a telescope myself, and its a reflector.  

They are made up of mirrors, which is an advantage because mirrors can be as big and thin as you want, which makes them overall lighter and easier to move around.  Refractor telescopes have lenses in them, which limits them to the size they can be since you can only make lenses of a certain size.

Placement of the lens/mirror is also imperative when talking about telescopes. In reflector telescopes, the mirror is located at the back of the telescope, so the mirror could be as big as you want and it wont bend the telescope in any way. In refractors on the other hand, the lens is located near the front. If the (objective) lens is too big, it can actually cause the telescope to bend, which is why there is limits on how big you can have the lens.

(In my reflector telescope, the lens is actually at the back behind the secondary mirror)

Of course, the main purpose of a telescope is to take in as much light as possible. So naturally, the bigger the opening at the front, the more light the telescope can take in, increasing the image quality.

That being said, both of the telescopes are great, and I’m pretty sure refractors may be a little cheaper. But keep in mind, even if you get a refractor now, there’s always an opportunity to upgrade to a larger, different kind of telescope if you continue with your observing!

Hope that helped! If not, feel free to clarify anything :)

Lost raccoon on our neighbour's roof! No food up there, silly raccoon!

Ah yes #Firefly! It's a terrific show~ such a shame no second season but make sure you see the movie once you've seen all the episodes!

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 2015 October 14 

A Gegenschein Lunar Eclipse 

Is there anything interesting to see in the direction opposite the Sun? One night last month, there were quite a few things. First, the red-glowing orb on the lower right of the featured image is the full moon, darkened and reddened because it has entered Earth’s shadow. Beyond Earth’s cone of darkness are backscattering dust particles orbiting the Sun that standout with a diffuse glow called the gegenschein, visible as a faint band rising from the central horizon and passing behind the Moon. A nearly horizontal stripe of green airglow is also discernable just above the horizon, partly blocked by blowing orange sand. 

Visible in the distant sky as the blue dot near the top of the image is the star Sirius, while the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches up on the image left and down again on the right. The fuzzy light patches just left of center are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Red emission nebulas too numerous to mention are scattered about the sky, but are labelled in a companion annotated image.

Meteors and Milky Way over Mount Rainier

Image Credit & Copyright: Matthew Dieterich

Credit: NASA APOD’s Website

Head's up! The #Perseid meteor shower peaks Aug 12-13. Look to the northeast after dark to see shooting stars.

Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant. A popular target for earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble field of view spans about 7,000 light-years or so across M94’s central region. The sharp close-up examines the galaxy’s compact, bright nucleus and prominent inner dust lanes, surrounded by a remarkable bluish ring of young, massive stars. The massive stars in the ring are all likely less than 10 million years old, indicating the galaxy experienced  a well-defined era of rapid star formation. As a result, while the small, bright nucleus is typical of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, M94 is also known as a starburst galaxy. Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can explore in detail reasons for the galaxy’s burst of star formation.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

#Doctorwho returns September 19th at 9pm on BBC AMERICA . You can watch the full trailer at youtube.com/BBCAmericaTV