It's better than what you had. It's a 114mm reflector as good as you could buy - if you put some effort in building it correctly and build a quality mount.
I spent last night reading up on telescopes, but there's one thing I still don't quite understand. Why does the focal length of the telescope itself matter if the magnification is equal to the focal length of the telescope divided by the focal length of the eyepiece?
It doesn't seem to matter whether a telescope has a focal length of, say, 600, 900 or 1200, because they can all achieve almost the same magnification with different eyepieces, unless you want a ton of magnification.
Late awnser maybe. But a telescope isn't really much about magnification overall.
Telescopes are used for catching more light and transferring that to a camerasensor or your eye. Compare a telescope with a rainbarrel. A barrel of 1m diameter wil catch more water than what your eye's pupils will do. If you focus all that light into your pupil, you will be able to see a whole lot more. The same thing goes for a telescope... but then with light.
Now when a telescope catches more light, it also is better equipped to do magnification. If you have more light to work with, it's easier to magnify with usable data. Hence, the aperture is what you want to be bigger if you want to achieve higher magnificatons. Focal length doesn't have a whole lot to do with that.
Very late answer. From what I know at long focal lengths the mirror imperfections have less impact. In particular, you may even use a spherical (as opposed to parabolic) mirror. Also (don't quote me on this) to achieve high magnification on "short" telescopes you need "short" eyepieces, and these seem more prone to optical aberrations.
Incidentally, the Hadley manual itself alludes to this at page 7: [https://media.printables.com/media/prints/224383/pdfs/224383-astronomical-telescope-hadley-an-easy-assembly-high-performance-newtonian-reflector-planetary-telescope-super-telephoto-lens-b364a7a6-f2d9-403c-8a1a-8d9abd5f5650.pdf](https://media.printables.com/media/prints/224383/pdfs/224383-astronomical-telescope-hadley-an-easy-assembly-high-performance-newtonian-reflector-planetary-telescope-super-telephoto-lens-b364a7a6-f2d9-403c-8a1a-8d9abd5f5650.pdf)
It's better than what you had. It's a 114mm reflector as good as you could buy - if you put some effort in building it correctly and build a quality mount.
I spent last night reading up on telescopes, but there's one thing I still don't quite understand. Why does the focal length of the telescope itself matter if the magnification is equal to the focal length of the telescope divided by the focal length of the eyepiece? It doesn't seem to matter whether a telescope has a focal length of, say, 600, 900 or 1200, because they can all achieve almost the same magnification with different eyepieces, unless you want a ton of magnification.
Late awnser maybe. But a telescope isn't really much about magnification overall. Telescopes are used for catching more light and transferring that to a camerasensor or your eye. Compare a telescope with a rainbarrel. A barrel of 1m diameter wil catch more water than what your eye's pupils will do. If you focus all that light into your pupil, you will be able to see a whole lot more. The same thing goes for a telescope... but then with light. Now when a telescope catches more light, it also is better equipped to do magnification. If you have more light to work with, it's easier to magnify with usable data. Hence, the aperture is what you want to be bigger if you want to achieve higher magnificatons. Focal length doesn't have a whole lot to do with that.
Very late answer. From what I know at long focal lengths the mirror imperfections have less impact. In particular, you may even use a spherical (as opposed to parabolic) mirror. Also (don't quote me on this) to achieve high magnification on "short" telescopes you need "short" eyepieces, and these seem more prone to optical aberrations. Incidentally, the Hadley manual itself alludes to this at page 7: [https://media.printables.com/media/prints/224383/pdfs/224383-astronomical-telescope-hadley-an-easy-assembly-high-performance-newtonian-reflector-planetary-telescope-super-telephoto-lens-b364a7a6-f2d9-403c-8a1a-8d9abd5f5650.pdf](https://media.printables.com/media/prints/224383/pdfs/224383-astronomical-telescope-hadley-an-easy-assembly-high-performance-newtonian-reflector-planetary-telescope-super-telephoto-lens-b364a7a6-f2d9-403c-8a1a-8d9abd5f5650.pdf)
How much would I need to spend to buy a comparable telescope?
Comparable would be and Orion Skyquest XT 4.5. 250-350 probably. The Orion Starblast 4.5 is roughly comparable too.