I am a total noob. I am looking at telescopes to order and I see that one comes with a red light flashlight or an ESR (not sure if ESR is a brand name or what it stands for) and I don't know what would be done with it at all.
I already looked it up and I've seen explanations of why you need to use one and that is to help preserve your night vision, but I'm still confused. What exactly do you do with this flashlight while using telescope? I don't get it. Do you point it at the sky, at the eyepiece, or do you simply use it to look at whatever you need to see in the dark when you're not using the telescope? Why can't it just be a regular flashlight? I've always seen fine at night with a normal flashlight and I've never heard of this kind of flashlight until today.
Thanks