The Costco Connection

The wonders of
stargazing
recreationsummer

By Erik J. Martin

FROM HIS FIRST glimpse of the colorful bands of Jupiter and the majestic rings of Saturn on a warm summer night 31 years ago, then-8-year-old David Galluzzo was hooked on stargazing.

“My uncle had a telescope, and we pointed it up at the brightest stars we could find—which just happened to be planets. From that night on, I would wait excitedly every day for it to get dark so that we could watch the skies together,” says Galluzzo, a Costco member in Brewster, New York, who now owns his own high-grade telescope and has two young children he’s eager to use it with.

“I love watching kids get excited at
what they discover in the sky,” he adds. “It
brings me back to when I was 8, and it
puts your life into perspective when you
see how vast our universe is.”
Tony Berendsen, owner of Tahoe Star
Tours in Reno, Nevada, agrees that star-
gazing can be a fun, economical and edu-
cational family activity. “You only need to
go outside in the dark and look up. And
introducing a telescope to a child can lead
to an interest in science and exploration
and a lifelong desire to learn about our
place in the cosmos,” he says.

Scoping out the options

While some cosmic wonders, such as
constellations and lunar eclipses, can be
seen with the naked eye, invest in a qual-
ity telescope if you want to view planets,
nebulae, galaxies and other stellar sights
with finer detail and clarity. Important
criteria to consider before buying include:
Aperture. The diameter of the main
lens or mirror; the larger the aperture, the
greater the image detail and cost.

Power. The magnification provided by the telescope, which is less important than aperture size.

Design. There are three main types.

Refracting telescopes use a thin, long tube in which light passes in a straight line from the front of the lens to the eyepiece to produce an image. They’re easy to use and recommended for planetary, lunar and binary stargazing, but usually have smaller apertures.

Reflecting telescopes use a shorter tube with one or more curved mirrors instead of a lens to reflect light and create an image.; They’re better for viewing remote galaxies, star clusters and nebulae, and are fairly portable and compact, but require more maintenance.

Catadioptric telescopes use a combination of lenses and mirrors to form an image. They are the most versatile but are often more expensive than basic models.

Mounting. This is the support structure, typically offered in a tripod design as an equatorial mount (made to easily track the sky’s motion as Earth rotates) or a