On Dec 10, 2009, at 3:59 AM, Charlie Bell wrote:
On 10/12/2009, at 6:26 PM, Bryon Daly wrote:
*Delurking*
I could use some telescope purchasing advice, if anyone's
interested in helping. My astonomy knowledge is quite limited.
I'd say you'd be better off getting a decent 'scope for the family
and getting the lad a good book on how to use it as a present. Go to
a telescope shop. Don't get one from a toy store.
I was rather taken with this one when it first hit the market, and
have been wanting one ever since:
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp?pn=3005001&bhcd2=1260492140
It's not a high-end machine with a computerized equatorial mount, but
it's quite a decent scope even considering its funky late-70's body
design. At least good enough for entertaining and engaging family
astronomy. There was a thriving secondhand market in these old
Astroscans before Edmund finally got wise and started making them again.
Yes, my exposure to telescopes was with one of the cheap toy-store
Newtonians. It was so unbelievably frustrating to use that I gave up
on it after a few weeks. (Although the eyepieces came in handy when I
was able to tape one onto an old microscope objective I had lying
around and make a surprisingly nice 100x+ handheld microscope, which I
might still have somewhere.)
With the Barlow and maybe a set of Ha and CaK solar aperture filters,
you could have quite a lot of fun with one of these...
"We're going to shape the future of jurisprudence, the laws that
sustain our whole society. Or shove somebody in there to strike down
those God-awful excuses for laws the Republicans are passing." -- Toby
Ziegler
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