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The longevity of the ideal home telescope could span decades. A recent postulation is that they can last 10 to 50 years, on average. This is because the mirror or lens surface, which is the functional optic part of your telescope, and other components will hardly lose quality over time if well maintained.
The home telescope is an optical device that magnifies objects and views celestial objects in the night sky from the comfort of your home instead of an observatory.
Home telescopes are arguably an exotic addition to your home collection. However, how long these devices last is a question that owners and prospective buyers often ponder.
Beholding the beauty of outer space and celestial objects in the night sky from the luxury of your own space is easily one of the wonders of modern technology, thanks to home telescopes.
However, like many other products, longevity is important for gratification.
In this article, we discuss factors surrounding their longevity and walk you through factors that will help you make worthwhile use of them.
Read on to find out!
Factors that affect the lifespan of a home telescope
The lifespan of a home telescope is determined by various factors such as:
The quality of the telescope
How long you derive gratification from your home telescope depends on the quality of the optics, the nature of the material that it consists of, as well as the precision of the manufacturing.
Whether your telescope is a reflecting telescope (that uses mirrors to bend light) or a refractive telescope (that uses lenses to bend light for viewing), the quality matters.
A reflecting telescope uses a primary mirror (usually a concave mirror) and a secondary mirror (which may be plane or convex).
It is not uncommon to see multiple mirrors in some telescopes. For context, the Webb telescope, a large telescope that tracks objects in different galaxies, has about eighteen primary mirror segments.
When you talk about quality, the following should be considered:
The optical quality
The optical quality of a telescope refers to the totality of all the features that make it render its image effectively, including the intrinsic properties of the primary mirror segments and secondary mirror segments.
This includes the focal length, the size of its aperture, resolving power, light grasp, contrast quality, power and magnification, and others.
Higher-quality telescopes are more likely to last longer and more satisfactorily than telescopes with lower optical quality. They can view an object with better detail.
Precision of manufacturing
The precision of manufacturing, which in turn, depends on the brand, is a crucial factor you would also want to consider.
Top brands, such as Celestron, rank high in this regard, and they boast a variety of specs to appeal to different demographics. They can be inexpensive and cost-effective as well.
Some of Celestron’s products that stand atop the crop include the Celestron NexStar 5 SE and the Celestron NexStar 130SLT (read the full review here).
The type of materials used
Aluminium, steel, and carbon fibers are the materials that usually makeup telescopes. Aluminium offers a high stiffness-to-weight material of adequate strength than steel, meaning that it might be the better choice for performance.
On the other hand, carbon fiber telescopes are more durable at a relatively lower density, although they may possess poor heat-cooling properties.
Ultimately, your choice of material depends on preferences and the cost.
Read also:
Level of maintenance and care
Devices last longer when owners cultivate effective maintenance habits, which is no different for home telescopes. During use, a proper maintenance culture keeps your home telescope in prime condition and effective for longer periods.
Usage
Usage, including frequency and intensity of use, can greatly impact the lifespan of a home telescope. Regular use can lead to wear and tear on the device, while infrequent use can result in dust buildup and deterioration.
Here is how this can affect the lifespan of your home telescope
Frequency of use
There is not really a fixed upper or lower limit on how often you should use your telescope, as long as you use them in the right ambiance and maintain them in-between periodic uses.
Due to the difference in people’s schedules, some only pull out their telescopes for use less than five times a year, while some use them every chance they get. If the conditions are right, more than 60 times a year.
Nonetheless, a properly maintained and stored telescope that you use sparingly is likely to last longer than a frequently-used one without proper maintenance or storage.
Conditions under which the telescope is used
Conditions such as temperature, humidity, and air quality can affect the performance and longevity of a home telescope. Exposure to extreme temperatures and moisture can cause damage, while pollution and dust can degrade the optics.
It’s important to use the telescope in a controlled environment and properly maintain and store it to ensure optimal performance.
You may also like: 15 Best Telescopes for Home Use (Read this first!)
How to extend the lifespan of a home telescope
Here are some tips to extend the lifespan of your home telescope:
Proper usage and handling
Proper handling and usage encompass setting up your telescope properly, using it in the right ambient conditions, and storing them properly. A poorly set-up telescope will most likely deliver defective or no images.
Furthermore, because the lens or mirrors are fragile, you have to ensure they do not sustain breakages or abrasion during use.
Before using your home telescope, here are a few things to note.
Heat
It is not a good idea to use or store your telescope in places where there is apparent prolonged and harsh heat. It might cause the glue or resin used to hold different components in the device to fail.
Heat could also cause the grease in the device to melt and stain the scope as well as reduce your device’s efficiency.
There is also the possibility that the heat causes expansion of the mirror and lenses and a resultant change of their optical property (which may include focal length).
Cold
Cold is usually not a problem when you want to use your telescope because cold air is dry and transparent. These are the ideal star-gazing conditions. However, you should ensure that your device acclimatizes to its surroundings before using it.
Similarly, you should not store your telescope in extremely cold places to avoid potential changes in functionality.
Humidity and moisture
Moisture causes rust to form around metallic parts of your telescope. This could reduce the functionality of your device.
Also, because light has to go past suspended water molecules before impinging on the mirror/lens in a humid atmosphere, it can affect the quality of images you get from star-gazing.
Regular maintenance
A proper and intentional maintenance culture keeps many devices running—it is no different for home telescopes.
You can maintain your telescope by doing the following:
Clean only when necessary
You should only clean your telescope when it is absolutely necessary. A little dust, if left alone, will usually not mess up the optics of your telescope, but too frequent cleaning can scratch the mirrors/lenses and leave them less effective.
Ideally, you should clean the lenses and primary and secondary mirrors about once a year, or even less, if possible.
However, if your telescope sustains a major accidental stain – like bird droppings – out of the blue, this could prompt you to break this routine and clean your telescope as soon as possible.
Clean with a soft cloth
Clean your telescope with a soft napkin and a little alcohol or diluted detergent for the best effects. This is because the lenses and mirrors are quite delicate.
Also, ensure that you remove substances that can potentially cause abrasion before you get down to cleaning your telescope.
Coat regularly
The coating of telescopes wears out often. This is because the reflective side of mirrors is on the outer mirror surface and directly in contact with the elements.
This usually causes the functionality of your telescope to reduce, and you cannot view distant objects in detail. Therefore, regularly coat (or recoat) your device to keep it functional. Aluminum Coatings, Enhanced Aluminum Coating, Dielectric Coating, and Silver Coating are some types of mirror coating available.
Store in dust-free, moisture-free spaces
Moisture can affect how your telescope works. The less dust that accumulates on it, the better its functionality. Therefore, you should store it away from damp, dusty spots.
Read also: How To Store a Telescope.
Upgrade and replace worn-out parts
During use, minor faults are inevitable. Usually, these faults start insidious, and in time, they may blow up and markedly reduce the functionality of your telescope. Therefore, you should be on the lookout for wear-outs and nip them in the bud.
Moreover, you might eventually outgrow your telescope and thus need more sophisticated features to meet your needs. In that case, you could upgrade these features, including the mount. It makes your telescope retain its functionality for much longer.
Signs of wear and tear in a home telescope
It’s important to regularly inspect your telescope to ensure it’s in good condition.
Here are some signs of wear and tear to look out for in your home telescope
Loose or wobbly mount
The perfect telescope mount serves the dual purpose of holding the weight of your telescope and securing it firmly in place for accurate pin-pointing during use.
The two types of telescope mounts are Altitude-Azimuth (alt-az) mounts and Equatorial mounts. The former is ideal for beginners, while the latter works better for non-amateurs due to the intricacies of the set-up
A wobbly mount defeats these purposes and signifies that your mounted telescope is beginning to wear out. To counter this concern in a Celestron CPC telescope, for example, you should do the following:
- Move this shaft down a bit by loosening the knob at the tray’s bottom by a few turns.
- With a wrench, loosen the nut on the center bottom of the tripod’s top plate.
- Then, unscrew the shaft with your hand until you lower the pin’s height by less than an inch.
- Retighten the nut, push the accessory tray up, and retighten the knob as well.
Cracks or chips in the optics
Mechanical trauma and poor storage methods put the mirrors at risk of a chip or a crack. A chip will scatter light and degrade image quality if you leave it unattended.
Usually, painting the chipped part black erases this defect. However, it reduces the amount of light that impinges on the mirror and causes subtle changes in the optical quality of your telescope as you perceive distant objects.
Cloudiness or yellowing of lenses
If you use a refraction telescope, your telescope’s lens might get cloudy as time goes by. This usually ensues due to contamination or damage to the coating. It reduces the amount of light the lens refracts and, in turn, the image quality it produces.
Malfunction of motor or electronic components
Beyond its optical ability, your home appliance remains an electronic device and thus can develop malfunctions typical of electronics in general.
Since the electronics control the optical operation of your telescope, it goes without saying that malfunction in electronic or motor components will adversely affect your telescope.
Difficulty in focusing or aligning the telescope
Misalignment and the wrong focusing of lenses or mirrors markedly reduce how you perceive distant objects on your telescope. You are not able to clearly notice the image of the celestial bodies the way you ought to.
Misalignment is fairly common because some find it difficult to mount their telescope after unwrapping. The Declination Drift Method is a popular method you can use to pull this off.
Moreover, to properly focus your telescope, here are some handy steps.
- After researching what you intend to do and view, align your telescope’s finder.
- After you have this in the bag, proceed to set your telescope to the lowest magnification, using the telescope’s focal length and that of the eyepiece.
- Next, you direct and set the telescope’s finder on the object and the telescope’s eyepiece.
- Then, you can set it to sharp focus.
These steps are somewhat tasking for beginners, but if you committedly take note of them, the process becomes quite easy.
Takeaway: Prolong your home telescope’s lifespan with proper maintenance and care
Maintenance and proper handling are key factors of any device’s longevity, and home telescopes are no different. This is because the problems with many telescopes that have short periods of usefulness are insidious problems that usually reduce their functionality as the years go by.
Nonetheless, it still goes without mentioning that the telescope’s intrinsic properties may also play a role.
The panaceas to these problems are as simple as they come. They are some of the most cost-effective decisions you could make during the course of ownership.
Proper cleaning, regular coating, proper storage, regular monitoring, and use in the right ambient conditions are all key elements of proper maintenance.
Be on the lookout for mount problems, electronic malfunctions, and misalignment abnormalities, and nip them in the bud as soon as possible before they fester and become major problems.
For the most part, your telescope’s longevity/lifespan depends on your decisions. Be sure to make the right ones today.
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