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Slashdot Asks: Cheap But Reasonable Telescopes for Kids?
I am interested in a telescope for the use of some elementary and middle school aged relatives. Older and younger siblings, and parents, would no doubt get some scope time, too. Telescopes certainly come in a range of prices, from cheap to out of this world, and I am purely a duffer myself. But I enjoy looking at the moon and stars with magnification, and think they would, too. What I'm trying to find might be phrased like this: "the lowest priced scope that's reasonably robust, reasonably accurate, and reasonably usable for kids" -- meaning absolute precision is less important than a focus that is easy to set and doesn't drift. Simplicity in design beats tiny, ill-labeled parts or an incomprehensible manual, even if the complicated one might be slightly better when perfectly tuned. I'd be pleased if some of these kids decide to take up astronomy as a hobby, but don't have any strong expectation that will happen -- besides, if they really get into it, the research for a better one would be another fun project. That said, while I'm price sensitive, I'm not looking *only* at the price tag so much as seeking insight about the cluster of perceived sweet spots when it come to price / performance / personality. By "personality" I mean whether it's friendly, well documented, whether it comes intelligently packaged, whether it's a crapshoot as to whether a scope with the same model name will arrive in good shape, etc -- looking at online reviews, it seems many low-end scopes have a huge variance in reviews. What scopes would you would consider giving to an intelligent 3rd or 4th grader? As a starting point, Google has helped me find some interesting guides that list some scopes that sound reasonable, including a few under or near $100. (Here's one such set of suggestions.) What would you advise buying, from that list or otherwise? (There are some ideas that sound pretty good in this similar question from 2000, but I figure the state of the art has moved on.) I'm more interested in avoiding awful junk than I am expecting treasure: getting reasonable views of the moon is a good start, and getting at least some blurry rings around Saturn would be nice, too. Simply because they are so cheap, I'd like to know if anyone has impressions (worth it? pure junk?) of the Celestron FirstScope models, which are awfully tempting for under $50.
Toilet paper roll.
Paper towel roll as an upgrade.
See the web-page
www.RobertMartinAyers.org/choosing-a-telescope.html
which discusses exactly that.
Here you go, http://store.astronomerswithoutborders.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=4. This is a nice 5" dobsonian with excellent optics that gets fantastic reviews, $199. It's light, small enough for a young person to use and move around, has a good sized mirror that's high quality. A portion of the profits goes to buy telescopes for schools in developing countries.
I would say to check out thrift stores and yard/garage sales to see what you can find. It's amazing what gems you might discover for $10!
Get a 4.5" or maybe a 6" Newtonian reflector on an EQ mount. Be sure you spend at least 5x on the mount than you do on the Optical Tube. The mount is 80% of the telescope. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT cheap out on a telescope by getting a shitty mount.
The EQ mount need not be motorized nor have a computer - in fact it's nice to learn about the RA/Dec axes and how to dial them in and track objects manually, but an RA motor would be necessary if you want to do any photography. (An RA motor does not necessarily require a full computer rig)
Eyepieces are also important, and pay no attention to "max power" capabilities, as they are always way overstated. A 4.5-6" Newtonian will be best at powers up to but not exceeding about 60-90X. Make sure you get a range of eyepieces to have variable power, but focus on field of view rather than magnification. Field of view is WAY more important than magnification.
The objects you will look at most with a 4.5-6" scope are the moon, planets, and nebulae. Nebulae are really cool, but you'll need the larger apertures to really appreciate them, or the photography setup so you can collect the light.
If you foresee going far with this as a hobby, you will want to go 8-10" at some point. It's better to decide now as telescopes are utterly worthless on the used market.
Hope this helps..
My college astronomy teacher told us, on our last day of class, you're always better off with an expensive pair of binoculars verses a cheap telescope. This was several years ago but he seemed to be of the opinion that if your budget was less than $200, you were better off with binoculars. He also pointed out that if your child loses interest in astronomy, binoculars have a wide variety of other uses.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
Don't buy a telescope. Instead, get a good pair of 10x50 binoculars and an intro astronomy book with pictures.
A telescope will always take some setup and you'll be less likely to go to the effort as time goes on. With binoculars, you just grab them and go. That's a much better way to keep beginners interested.
No. Absolutely not. Alt-az mounts are horrible, especially for beginning astronomers as there is a complete disconnect between the telescope axis and reality. An alt-az mount almost has to be motorized to be useful, and it drives up cost. People hocking dobs love to talk about how cheap the "dollars per inch" of the optics are, but the fail to mention you can look at something under high magnification for a few seconds before it disappears, and then you have to figure out how to track RA with an alt-az mount under high power and find the object again.
There's no better way to get an astronomy newbie to QUIT the hobby than to set them up with a dob.
The telescopes listed in your "one set of suggestions" link are good. To get a telescope that's intended for real amateur astronomers rather than cheap junk for hopeful clueless parents, get a small reflector, not a refractor. I teach at a college: in our class for nonmajors, we introduce them to the sky with Orion Starblast 4.5s, which are cheap, compact and easy to carry, bulletproof, and easy to use. The magnification is low for planets, but that means it's easier to find things, and easier to track them manually through the sky. Orion also sells the SkyScanner 100mm, a slightly smaller, significantly cheaper version of the same thing. Their XT4.5 dobsonian is a little bigger and more expensive, and will give a better view of the planets but be more difficult to use for deep sky objects.
What I'm saying is, buy a small reflector from Orion.
I found one for $80 with computer go-to controller. Optics seem very good. Check Craig's List for stuff for sale in your area.
No. Absolutely not. Alt-az mounts are horrible, especially for beginning astronomers as there is a complete disconnect between the telescope axis and reality. An alt-az mount almost has to be motorized to be useful, and it drives up cost. People hocking dobs love to talk about how cheap the "dollars per inch" of the optics are, but the fail to mention you can look at something under high magnification for a few seconds before it disappears, and then you have to figure out how to track RA with an alt-az mount under high power and find the object again.
There's no better way to get an astronomy newbie to QUIT the hobby than to set them up with a dob.
Exactly the opposite ... You're going to expect an 11y to polar align?
No. Absolutely not. Alt-az mounts are horrible, especially for beginning astronomers as there is a complete disconnect between the telescope axis and reality. An alt-az mount almost has to be motorized to be useful, and it drives up cost. People hocking dobs love to talk about how cheap the "dollars per inch" of the optics are, but the fail to mention you can look at something under high magnification for a few seconds before it disappears, and then you have to figure out how to track RA with an alt-az mount under high power and find the object again.
There's no better way to get an astronomy newbie to QUIT the hobby than to set them up with a dob.
A perponderance of users contradicts what you are writing. The concept of an EQ mount is completely at odds with the way people - especially noobs, think. Where is X? This many degrees up and that many over with the alt-az mount. So now with the EQ mount, you have to first align it, then moving it around can be "interesting", and by the time you get things moved around, the kids have lost interest.
You might like the EQ mount better, but that's personal preference not shared by a lot of others, except thos that like to do imaging. Even then, with a drive and a eyepiece rotator, you can do just as well. What is especially problematic with the EQ mounts is how they scale in mass with the size of the scope. They get really big and heavy, really quickly.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This advice is almost exactly the opposite of "good". You might be interested to learn that James Dobson, of Dobsonian fame, specifically designed the telescope to be simple to construct and use. The OP talked about the moon and Saturn. Both of those objects are very easy to see with the naked eye, and therefore very easy to point an alt-azimuth telescope at. An equatorial mount or motor drive is actually harder for a beginner to use than just a simple push-to-go-to alt-az mount. And any motorized drive you could get for anywhere near $100 is just junk.
All that said, you probably won't find a new Dobsonian scope for $100. There are some inexpensive alt-az refractors for about $120 - the Orion StarBlast 70mm for example. It has a finderscope, an erect-image diagonal, and a standard 1.25"-diameter focuser and two eyepieces. Might be worth a peek.
Alternatively, if you are interested in really learning a lot about telescopes, you could build one, starting with grinding your own mirror. You might get that done for about $100 for a 4.25" reflector.
Get the best (Ha-Dec) mount you can. (I would not get an Alt-Az mount for a beginner on a budget.) Most department store type scopes have adequate optics, but very crappy mounts, and that makes for a miserable viewing experience. Get a very sturdy mount with a cheap scope,and then if the kid wants to move up, they have the mount for it.
I have had five scopes. My current primary scope is Celestron CGE 1100.
First, get a good set of binocs and a star atlas. I recommend either "Turn Right at Orion" and/or Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas. I have the Orion Mini-giants 9x63 and they are wonderful for astronomy. They are also light enough to be used without a tripod. It really helps to know the basic constellations when starting. Also get http://www.stellarium.org/
Craigslist has used scopes all the time. You could pick up a Celestron C5, C6, or C8 for a few hundred and prob. not lose too much on resale. Stay away from "department store" scopes!
Check out your local astronomy club. Our club has 20+ scope for loaning and at a star party you could check out a bunch of scope live.
Finally, the is a great resource: http://www.cloudynights.com/to...
Clear Skies!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Go to your local observatory on an open-house night and get a free look through the lens. There are usually amateurs set up with their own equipment outside and will allow viewers too.
If your kids can stay up late and stand in the cold without complaining, they're ready for a telescope.
I think you mean John Dobson
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
A plossl or super plossl (dont spend too much). Adding a barlow to the mix helps.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I just worked thru this same project with my MS/HS kids. For us, the answer was not a specific scope, but the best one we could find for cheap secondhand. It worked out very well to involve the kids not just with the content viewable thru the scope, but with the mechanics of assembling a working setup. Now they're interested in the optics and process, not just the results.
After several crappy new ones (thanks, woot...) we happened upon a Celestron Astromaster 90 for $25 at the local Goodwill (1000mm focal length/which they advertise as "dual-purpose telescope appropriate for both terrestrial and celestial viewing" -- but the most important thing for us was the stable tripod. Even a great scope will be frustrating and a turnoff for the kids if it's wobbly and hard to see something cool at the outset, like craters on the moon. For the CA90, I picked up an eyepiece-to-Tmount adapter and T-to-DSLR for $30, allowing us to swap naked-eye viewing and digital photography (face it, if you succeed and the kids go 'oo shiny' the next question is 'can i put this on tumblr?'), all for under $100 and the whole setup fits into the car trunk.
An alternate which we also enjoy, while not strictly a "telescope": I picked up a 500mm F6.5 camera lens for under $50 (I have both a refractor http://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/opteka-500mm-mirror-f8.html and long-tube/telescope style http://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/quantaray-500mm-f8-f32.html) and slapped a 2x matched doubler on it, giving us an effective 1000mm telescope with a t-mount end. We dropped an additional $8 on a t-mount adapter for a DSLR, and $30 for a manfrotto lens holder for a tripod (optional). For under $100 total, this gave us some pretty sharp digital-only viewing that fits into a messenger bag. Again, this is a win not because it's the best optical setup, but because it pulls the kids into the process AND the result is shareable.
Oh... and one other cheap trick that is a huge help with viewing using budget (but not crap) optics: Attaching about 8in of 1in link chain (just the standard hardware store proof chain) to the objective end of your long telescope makes an excellent vibration damper. With this chain damper and a 2- or 10-sec delay on your camera, you can snap no-touch/super-clear pictures thru the scope with most excellent results.
YMMV. Good luck!
I think not...(*poof*)
It's like buying a Ducati for a kid who hasn't had her training wheels removed. Amateur astronomy involves a lot of time spent in the cold and a lot of prerequisite knowledge. If you don't want to waste money, you should actually make sure that the person is truly interested in astronomy before buying a scope, and you shouldn't go cheap on the scope. Any telescope under $500 is probably not a good investment. I suggest the following.
1) Go to an observatory open night (try universities, colleges, and professional and public observatories) or an amateur astronomy star party with the kids. See what they think about it.
2) Actually go backyard observing with the people in question with the naked eye, if they are interested, buy them astronomical binoculars. A pretty good pair will start at under $100 and, unlike a $100 telescope, will be very portable and useful (even if the kid never really sticks with amateur astronomy).
3) If they stick with it, get them a subscription to some amateur astronomy magazines like "Sky and Telescope" and "Astronomy".
4) If they're still interested, buy them the best scope you can afford, either a ground-mounted Newtonian (or similar design) on the cheap range (you can actually get a good aperture size (which tends to be the most important measure) for pretty cheap, or if you have the money, go with a Schmidt-Cassegrain (or similar style) telescope with at least an 8" aperture (you might actually be able to find a good one used for well under $1000 if you look hard).
There are a lot of other people and institutions out there with better equipment than you can afford, so no point in breaking the bank until you are sure that a good quality amateur scope is really worth the money, and no point in getting a low end scope when a pair of binoculars will serve you better in the long run.
Unless you are willing to invest a lot of money in a good refractor, or lens based scope, you are better off with a mirror. Lenses have a quality called chromatic aberration, which can be mostly eliminated, but you'll be buying an expensive scope that isn't all that big, and need to take special care of it.
An equatorial mount needs to be rock steady. This means it has to have a lot of mass usually a lot more than the Optical tube.
This is why unless you plan on doing a lot of photography from a fixed location, an alt az mount is preferable for rmost folks. It also allows you to use a relatively large mirror.
The Dobsonian version of alt-az mounts uses a base bearing, the azimuth portion, and altitude bearing, that usually consists of a teflon surface placed against a formica type surface. The idea is that when the scope is balanced, it will stay where it's placed, yet will move without jerkiness when you need to move it. The scopes I have made allow me to move them smoothly while viewing. It has a quality we refer to as "stiction"
As for the size of the telescope, I recommend a 6 inch for beginners, or maybe an 8 inch. A focal ratiot of somewhere between F6 and f8 is also good.
A note that the longer the focal length, the larger the magnification of any given object is for a given eyepiece, , and the narrower the field of view is. The shorter focal ratios, like f4 have a wider field of view which can make for some awesome views of the Milky way, but they have an aberration known as coma, which means the center of the image will be sharp, but not the edges. This too can be corrected, but with an expensive coma corrector.
Next the really important part is Eyepieces.
Very popular today is the Plössl, which have a pretty decent apparent field of view, which is to say it doesn't look like you are viewing through a porthole from 5 feet away.
You should get a few different sizes. I would recommend a 32 mm, a 25 or 20 mm, and perhaps a 15 mm. There are shorter eyepieces available, but are only useable when the atmosphere seeing is very good, otherwise they give a pretty elnarged fuzzy image, which is not the lenses fault, but the conditions.
Note there is a type of eyepiece called a "Nagler", which is a very good but very expensive eyepiece. Stick with the Plössls to start with, Naglers are awesome, but can empty your bank account pretty quickly.
So let's say you are looking at a 6 inch scope. Orion has their skyquest scopes for either $299 or $349 a version with a barlow lens which will double the magnification of any eyepiece.
I'd go for the $299 model. It's an F8 which should be a good compromise height for kids or adults - more on that in a moment.
A Sirius Plössl eyepiece is in the roughly 50 dollar range each.
Some things to think about:
A chair for the adults, especially handy for viewing things at lower Alt settings.
A step ladder with a railing for the young'uns.
Both should wait unti you have a scope in hand. I have an infinitely adjustable chair that makes viewing a lot more pleasant, and the railing is just something for leaning against instead of the telescope.
A Telrad. This is a cool - if ugly - device that projects a bulls-eye image on glass that you look through to find objects. Works great. There are also "red dot BB finders that are Okay but not much better than the regular finder. A cool feature is that there are Telrad finder charts that allow you to set your scope with a better chance of finding what you are looking for.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Dobs in the 5" - 10" range are perfect.
I recommend 8-10.
when they out grow the Dob mount you can buy some rings and put them on an equatorial mount.
it gives you an upgrade path.
some good links:
great for comparing prices
http://www.optcorp.com/
AWB offers a great little scope for the price.
http://store.astronomerswithou...
It's hard to beat a lot of their prices.
http://www.telescope.com/
A beginner telescope should always be a EQ mount and a reasonable priced optical assembly. So, maybe a 6" Newtonian is fine. Then you add 2 or 3 eyepieces and you are done.
*EVERY* beginner (or not beginner) looks at things called star charts. These charts have only 2 coordinates on them. Right ascension and Declination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
And since Earth rotates, *EVERY* beginner knows that all you need is move R.A. and objects will stay beautifully in one spot in your scope.
Your "objections" to not using EQ mounts are completely wrong when it comes to beginning scopes. And by beginning, I don't mean auto-tracking mounts.
1. Their size (due to counterbalance) is irrelevant for small scopes.
2. Alignment is almost elementary to be "good enough". Even if you miss polaris by 5-10 degrees, you are close enough such that declination adjustments to keep your scope pointed are minimal.
When I used my very beginner "walmart grade" 60mm refractor to view Venus transit, its cheap EQ mount was very useful to track the sun. I just aligned the mount to general north and it Just Worked (BTW, it's not motorized or anything, 100% manual operation).
On the other hand, dobs are not appropriate for high magnification (at least for beginners). On low magnification, in dark conditions, sure, get a dob. If you want to look at Saturn or Jupiter or even the Moon or the Sun, EQ mount is far far superior.
So now with the EQ mount, you have to first align it, then moving it around can be "interesting", and by the time you get things moved around, the kids have lost interest.
The question says "reasonable telescope for kids" not "reasonable telescope to wow kids".
PS. Practicing star hopping when using standard charts without EQ mount, is kind of complicated too if your next star is not in the same field of view. Or you don't know which direction is which because your chart is completely out of whack.
Sure, you can just use an "app" to calculate these things for you. But then you might as well get computerized mount and learn nothing. You know, the "easy button" way.
As penance, here is a $65 mirror grinding kit, for a 4.25" mirror: http://firsthanddiscovery.com/...
To make your own Dobsonian, just add a diagonal and stalk, a cardboard tube, plywood, a bit of Ebony Star formica, and some teflon pads and miscellaneous hardware.
Let's assume you got a cheap telescope. What can you do to make it work better for you?
1. Get astronomy software. Someone else mentioned Stellarium; I guess that's the go-to PC software now. I don't know what's available for phones. But make sure it shows an object's altitude in degrees.
2. Get a red flashlight. I guess these days people use red LEDs; back when I was a kid the place to go was army surplus for those bent army flashlights with colored filters.
3. Get a protractor. It's cheap, it's plastic, it shows degrees, and it's probably on sale now for back-to-school.
4. Get a piece of thin string and a weight, such as a nut for a bolt.
Tie the piece of string through the center hole on the protractor, and tie the other end to the weight. Now tape the protractor to the body of the telescope, preferably along some piece that sticks out near the tripod so it's aligned properly. To get an object in the scope, find its current altitude on your astronomy software. Then tilt the scope so the string's position matches that altitude on the protractor, using the red flashlight to see the string and protractor. You might have to do some math to get the matching number on the protractor. (90-x degrees - see, kids, that's what math is good for!) Now you mostly have to pan the scope, which is usually easier than tilting.
One other idea that came to mind while writing this: Take the jack stand out of your car, tape it to one leg of the tripod, and you might be able to use that for fine tilt adjustments. I've never tried this idea, though.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
I wanted to get something that my daughter and I could use to view the moon with but didn't want to spend a large amount of money in the event that she was not interested. I also wanted something that was easy to set up and portable (we live in the suburbs between two major cities, so to get a decent dark sky we need to drive a couple of hours). After doing some research I decided to go with the Celestron SkyMaster 15x70.
These have several advantages:
- They're very portable and compact
- They can be mounted on a tripod
- They can be used for non-astronomical viewing
- It's only a $60 investment
Ultimately for us, it was the best of both worlds.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
my daughter (now seven) began using a 4.5" dob last winter. A member of the astronomy group that I belong to was pretty blown away that she could easily find the Orion Nebula on her own. She loves scanning the sky on her own and has stumbled across a few Messier objects this way. It's on the ground so it's almost immune to being knocked over. It's a fairly solid tube, so if it's knocked over it likely won't be a big deal. It has no moving parts, it's the perfect height for her, it's easy to move and the general 'point and shoot' nature makes it very easy to use. No batteries, no electronics, no alignment needed. (I collimate it once in a while and that takes all of 5 minutes) Also, the set up is ridiculously easy. I see her outgrowing this one day. There's a 12" truss dob waiting for her when she does.
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
That's a bunch of hogwash. I have a 60mm refractor and it can see bands on Jupiter and the Cassini gap between the inner Saturn ring and outer (under ideal conditions). Binoculars will not even show the rings separate from the ball of Saturn, and will not show bands on Jupiter. I can also see spots on Mars and the polar caps under ideal conditions. It did take some practice to learn to see some of these, though. It wasn't instant.
Just make sure the optics say "precision ground". That has a legally-enforced trade meaning.
That being said, reflectors are more cost effective for looking at nebula. For "bright" objects like the moon and planets, refractors are more bang for the buck because the center mirror in the reflectors tends to blur planets etc. via diffraction. It's a trade-off.
It all depends on the preferences and behavior and discipline of the kid.
I have a cheap mount (simple tripod). It's annoying, but I've learned to live with it via practice by knowing how to manually track. Being bare-bones, it didn't stop me from seeing anything I wanted to see.
And don't be fooled by extra or gimmicky attachments, such as a Barlow lens. They are often useless. The only attachment I really enjoyed was the sun filter lens, but there are other ways to view the sun via projection.
Auto-targeting gizmos can be nice, but they do take a fair amount of setup and fiddling before they can do their job.
But, I personally think it's better to just learn how to aim the thing manually. Start with the moon to get used to aiming, tracking, and focusing. You then apply those skills to progressively dimmer objects.
If the kid is not disciplined or motivated to practice and use the scope to its potential, then no scope is "good".
Table-ized A.I.
Absolutely yes.
I'd be pleased if some of these kids decide to take up astronomy as a hobby, but don't have any strong expectation that will happen
And most won't.
Most kids (adults, too) will be curious, rather than interested, However, once they take a look through a telescope they will be disappointed. The only objects that give any sense of awe, or wonder, are views of The Moon, Jupiter, Mars (when it's close: once every 2 years), and Saturn. Everything else is just a fuzzy, faint, grey blob.
Sure, you can point a telescope at M31 (Andromeda) and tell people that it's a galaxy and that it's 2 billion light-years away. But really: who care? and who can appreciate how far a light-year is, either? Try a telescope on M13 (The Hercules cluster: either the best or second-best cluster in the night sky) and it is just a collection of points of light - quite pretty for the average newbie to look at once, but that's about it - a bit like picking up an unusual shell on a beach.
I have lots of friends and neighbours who have asked for a look through my telescopes. But none have ever asked again. They see things through my 12-inch Dob or 4 inch refractor (on a GOTO) and make all the right, appreciative, noises but that's mainly for show. Afterwards the reaction is mainly that's nice - who wants a beer? And the whole experience is chalked up "I've seen the rings of Saturn" - but that's all it is: a tick on a "bucket" list.
So I would ignore all these recommendations for this telescope or those binoculars. - they merely reflect the biases and posessions of people who are already enthusiasts. I wouldn't go buying equipment in the hope of impressing, or converting children to astronomy. It won't. They are used to bright, colour images from space telescopes of things at the very edge of creation. They will settle for nothing less and are much more used to seeing things on screens than first-hand. Who can compete with that?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Exactly the opposite ... You're going to expect an 11y to polar align?
Yes. Teach him or her once, and they feel like they now know the secrets of science. They'll soon be looking up exact lat/lon for their location, and setting it more precisely than the affordable (cheap) mechanism can handle, which is just fine. This also teaches them how to find Polaris. And if they ever get the itch to take some photographs, they'll have the right tool for the job.
After looking at Saturn's rings and spotting the Galilean moons, they're going to want to see other famous features; looking for the Messier objects is a great challenge for kids. This will quickly teach them a few other foundational skills, too: how to read a star chart, Right Ascension and Declination, and sidereal time. All this can be done on a relatively inexpensive 4" reflector with a small equatorial mount on a tripod.
A Dobsonian will give much clearer pictures for the money, and is great for viewing easily identifiable objects, but it's not going to give them a working understanding of celestial mechanics.
John
For a very low-price but useful entry-level telescope, try the Galileoscope. It is an achromatic refractor that has been designed as part of the International Year of Astronomy, and can be had for approximately US$ 50 (or order a box of 6 for US$30 apiece). It comes with an eyepiece that approximates Galileo Galilei's experience, but also with (IIRC) 2 modern eyepieces that are decent enough for the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn's ring. Also, it uses a standard eyepiece adapter, so it can be further upgraded if required. Some assembly required - this is intended as a teaching opportunity ;-). It's cheap enough that it can just be passed on to another kid or a local school if a better instrument is obtained.
Stephan
Astronomy can be a very frustrating hobby when you're searching through space looking for something. If you intend to do the hobby with others or want to help your kid and star at the sky together you absolutely must get a decent purpose built tripod for your binoculars. There's nothing more frustrating than having someone say "Whoa! M16 looks great!" passing you the binoculars and then you spending 10 minutes trying to find the damn thing.
I say purpose made because a standard tripod is not going to let you point the binoculars straight up. You will need to buy (or make) something that will let you point into any direction, and then lock so you can share the moment.
Otherwise the suggestion is pretty spot on. I can see through a decent pair of binoculars so much more than I could through that crappy $50 discovery channel telecsope my parents gave me as a kid as what I can only consider was a misguided attempt to get me to find another hobby.
Refractors will always produce low-quality images. A good pair of binoculars will cost less and show you more.
[whisper] Pssst. Hey buuddy. Binoculars are refractors. Nobody makes reflecting binoculars because that would be stupid.[/whisper]
"His name was James Damore."
> I'm in the southern hemisphere
So? Just bore a hole through the Earth and line up on Polaris like the rest of us do.
Sheesh.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
PS. Practicing star hopping when using standard charts without EQ mount, is kind of complicated too if your next star is not in the same field of view. Or you don't know which direction is which because your chart is completely out of whack.
Over twenty years in the hobby here and I can't say I've found this to be true for me. I can star hop just fine with a Dob and a star chart. Actually, most of the time I don't even need to star hop through the eyepiece. I just do it naked eye with a Telrad.
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I disagree with parent. An equatorial mount is the way to go, short of a computer controlled motorized mount of any kind.
The problem is not that of initially pointing the 'scope at the celestial object. Anyone can do that with either type of mount. The problem is tracking the object after it is found. An equatorial mount that locks the scope to the object's track is the only way to go within an affordable price range.
I was 12 or 13 yo when my Dad decided that I showed enough interest in astronomy to be worthy of owning a telescope. My birthday present that year was a used 4 inch reflector on an equatorial mount with a couple of eye pieces. I loved that thing.
I can attest that a 13 yo can learn to use an equatorial mount with ease, including aligning it properly with a magnetic compass, which also involved learning to adjust for the difference between magnetic and true North. All of which was fascinating. I learned all this without adult supervision (Dad was not into astronomy), and I am certain that a motivated younger child could easily learn all this with good adult direction.
The frustrations I encountered with this first telescope experience were in aligning the mirror and aligning the spotting scope with the main tube. In retrospect it would have been much better if an adult had done those things for me. Other sources of frustration were that the spotting scope's crosshairs were not very visible in the dark, and that scope's tube was not rigid enough for the higher power eyepiece to be of much use (too much vibration and jitters). These details should probably be considered when making the purchase.
Don't discount craigslist, etc, as a good source for a used telescope. Some who start with an entry level 'scope lose interest and sell their's, others upgrade to better equipment when they can. A second hand 'scope from someone who is spending beaucoup bucks on a better replacement is likely to be in excellent working order, and could be a really good deal. Plus, often the seller would willingly give a potential buyer a free night time demo, with rings of Saturn or moons of Jupiter...
Oh yeah, there is prob'ly an amateur astronomy club around you somewhere. They put on star gazing parties where a person could look at a number of different set-ups and get a lot of info from their owners.
Will