indoor viewing

[joelkujala]

a simple question ,does viewing your telescope thru a glass window affect the image ,,or focus at all ,even with all inside lights off?

[erick (Eric)]

Perhaps you can experiment and let us know. Observe through a window then open it and compare?

[ngcles]

Hi Joe,

For Terrestrial viewing -- not preferred but the view won't be too bad.

For Astronomy -- the image will be seriously degraded, colour altered ... yucky yucky poo! Your telescope was made for the wide outdoors. Take it outside mate and it will perform much, much better.

Best,

Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

Originally Posted by joelkujala

a simple question ,does viewing your telescope thru a glass window affect the image ,,or focus at all ,even with all inside lights off?

Englishman, George Alcock, discovered a comet looking through a closed window. So besides some distortion due to the glass, have a look - there's no rule against it!

Richard

[Dennis]

I think that window glass is optically quite poor so unless you have a real reason to do so, I would not recommend astronomy through a glass window. Also, you may find thermal currents flowing around the walls of a building so these may degrade your seeing (image quality) too.

However, if looking through a window you must, it’s definitely far better than not looking at all, so go for it.

Cheers

Dennis

[Matty P (Matt)]

I wouldn't recommend imaging through a window from indoors. As the others have said, it will seriously distort your image.

However, I used to observe the skies from the indoors when I first started. I used my small 80mm refractor and observed Saturn and the Moon through a window. Although being slighty blurred, I was able to observe Saturn's rings in detail.

It is really up to you but if you are lucky enough to have clear skies, why not spend it outdoors?

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

I tried this once as a teenager with my first scope. The image was so bad I thought there was something wrong with the scope.
Geoff

[Alchemy (Clive)]

the only reason i could think of doing it indoors would be if you lived in a high rise with no balcony in which case the moon and jupiter would be about all you could see, apart from the other neighbours i suppose( this is an astronomy forum so we presume its astronomical objects youre interested in.....your post didnt specify ????)

nope get a hot chocolate , rug up and out into the chill, the best view is straight up and you couldnt do that through a window.