Spending Green to See Red Planet 

Jeff DeTray, a retired magazine publishing executive who pursues amateur astronomy from his home in rural New Hampshire and runs Astronomy Boy, said he hasn't yet invested in a go-to device simply because, in his words, he's "cheap."

He and Flaspoehler both noted that such devices on the high end now also include a GPS option that makes the calibration straightforward. Such devices otherwise typically have to be calibrated manually to adjust for relative position on Earth and time of year, through a cumbersome process that involves getting three particular stars centered in the telescope's eyepiece.

Beyond the go-to devices, cannibalizing webcams for their charge-coupled devices (or CCDs) and linking them to telescopes and computers for imaging are all the rage among amateur stargazers, particularly those who have been watching Mars grow larger over the past few months.

The CCDs allow for short exposures of low levels of light at rates averaging 30 frames per second, Sky & Telescope's Beatty said. Amateur astronomers then use shareware programs to scan for the best images and compose those to achieve single images of exceedingly high quality.

Still, all of the astronomy buffs interviewed advised budding neophytes to chill out on buying their own gear until they have learned some of astronomy's basics.

They counseled hooking up with an astronomy club -- many of which are having Mars viewing events this week and into the fall -- to ensure interest in the hobby and to learn the ropes about the best equipment to buy.

"There's lots you can get done with a pair of binoculars," Beatty said. "If you're in a clear dark site right now without a lot of light pollution, you can get out a lounge chair and some bug repellent and run down the Milky Way with binoculars and see knots of glowing gas and clusters of stars."

And if you look up at Mars for the first time with a telescope and see what appear to be lines on the surface -- no, those are not canals.

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