Is a 1000x f/8.8 good telescope im not sure what it means????

Question

I might be getting one for viewing the moon and stars

Answer 1

This specification they gave you is generally not how it would be presented. It doesn't really make sense. I wouldn't buy it.

Answer 2

Try to find a link to it and post it here.  The information you give, isn't enough.

If they claim 1000x, that makes me suspicious already.  The f8.8 can apply to anything from a telescope to a camera lens.  It says nothing of importance in deciding value.

You need to tell us the focal length and aperture.  THEN we can give you the scoop.  (Or just the aperture, since we know the focal ratio.)

Answer 3

1000x would be OK for a telescope with a 500 mm diameter main mirror.  f8.8 is the ratio of the diameter of the scope to the focal length - which in a Newtonian reflector is more or less the length of the scope.  So that would be a half meter diameter scope with a 4.4 meter focal length.  That is,  a huge cannon.  These things are over ten thousand dollars.

But i've started seeing a confusion of ads where the 1000x is the focal length in mm.  That's one meter. So the diameter of the main mirror would be 113 mm - which is common for fairly cheap scopes.  What would make such a scope good is if the eyepieces give you useful magnification, which would be about 220x maximum.  So eyepieces less than 5mm focal length are useless.  Such a scope might come with a 5mm, a 10mm and a 20mm eyepiece.  They might throw in a 3x barlow, which when combined with the 20mm eyepiece yields 90x - which might be OK.

However, the mount still has to be stable, and the finder needs to be able to be aligned with the main scope and stay there, and the focuser needs to be usable - it has to be fairly easy to get something into focus, and it needs to stay there.

Try before you buy.  It's OK to point it out the front of the store (but not through the window), at something a kilometer away, and play with the mount, focus, finder, and eyepieces.  Imagine how it will work pointing more or less straight up.

The other thing to do is Join a club.  I bought an $800 scope.  That would get me 26 years of club membership.

Answer 4

Are you sure it's not a 1000 mm scope?

Answer 5

this doesn't look like any telescope specification i've ever seen.

perhaps you should read up on the subject before you proceed any further.