telescopes?

[Classic Mom]

Looking for a good beginner telescope.  Any recommendations- those you disliked?  those you like?

 

We have a very inexpensive telescope (picked up at a museum gift store years ago), but have trouble finding even the moon with it.  We need to upgrade, but I am not sure what price range I need to be in to get a good quality beginner telescope.  We will use it for middle school age astronomy.

 

I've been looking at Orion telescopes in the $100-$150 range.  Will that get a telescope that is easy to use and allows us to see the planets, see craters on the moon,  etc.?

 

Thanks for any input.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

We got a cheap Meade at a consignment store.  Moon looked great.  Planets looked like fuzzy blobs.

 

We did a field trip to the observatory at Williams College and saw the same things through their giant telescope.  The grad students explained that astronomers prefer the blobs to Hubble-like pictures of Saturn and such because they measure things that don't need photo-like pics.  Kind of a downer, since it's not what kids want to see.

 

Serious hobbyists seem to spend several hundred on their first telescopes, so for your $150ish, think moon not Jupiter.  DD's scope now sits in the basement, so I'm glad we didn't pay a lot.

[8filltheheart]

Try reading posts by Jean in Wisc.   I wish I had listened to her!!  She strongly recommends high quality binoculars over telescopes.   

[athomeontheprairie]

We have these

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0007UQNTU/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1385177525&sr=8-2&pi=SY200

And the tripod. Live the binoculars vs telescope. The moon is amazing. We can also easily see Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. But we are rural, with the closest city 75 miles away (and its a tiny city at that), if you lived in town or urban maybe you wouldn't get that great of a view? Idk, maybe? Still beginners here :-)

[geodob]

With a telescope, make sure that you get one with a viewfinder scope attached to it.  As this makes it much easier to find what you want to see.

 

[Classic Mom]

Thanks everyone. We have binoculars that are similar to ones rjones posted the link to, so we'll try those soon. And it sounds like we need to up the price range for a telescope. The star blast Orion that Jean in Wisconsin recommended looked good and good reviews on amazon. Thanks!

[Alessandra]

Can't quote on iPhone....

 

Yes, jean has great advice.

 

Start with binoculars and learn the constellations!!!! We have the Celestron ones linked above. They are fine in our light polluted NYC suburbs. With binocs you will get a much wider field of view than with a telescope.

 

For comfortable viewing, you would want a tripod that works for astronomy, expensive. But you can also balance the binocs on your knees of something vertical -- we have used a pole bird feeder, lol. Or get a lighter pair of, say, 7 x 50 binocs -- check out telescope websites.

 

For telescopes, ones by Orion have got consistently good reviews for the ones in your price range. Look at the reflecting scopes, not the refractors.

 

Think about how you will use the scope. Videos on setting up the scopes can be found on manufacturer's websites. Do you want something that has to be set up or something grab 'n go for quick viewing?

 

Astronomy magazines (in most libraries) have great reviews.

[Alessandra]

Gosh, can't edit on phone. My overall recommendation is binoculars, as jean wisely suggested to me

[Lanny]

My wife is an amateur Astronomer. Many years ago, we bought a Celestron Dobsonian telescope for her. It is a lot of "bang for the buck".

 

We bought that model because a man in the Physics Department of the Public university in Cali told us they had a bunch of them that they used to teach school children about Astronomy.

 

I believe my wife has the 8 inch model. GL

 

ETA: Celestron Dobsonians are rugged. If you buy a telescope with a Tripod, you will get a much smaller telescope, because half of the money goes into the Tripod.

[Joshin]

I second (third) the Orion Starblast series for the beginner and they don't break the bank. They come with two eyepieces, a collimator, a copy of the Starry Night planetarium software, and a red dot finder scope. Select the ones on a dobsonian mount. Younger son and myself by default are both amateur astronomers and active in astronomy outreach.. The Starblast 4.5 is pretty good, but it is a tabletop model so you need a sturdy outdoor table to set it on. The Starblast 6 is better, comes on a full size mount, and even has a go-to option (so it's computerized and can find the stars for you). You can see the moon, the planets, double stars, the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, nebulas and galaxies (AKA the "faint fuzzies") quite well. Good quality eye pieces are the key to seeing finer details. Start with the eye pieces that come with the scope, and maybe invest in a barlow eye piece (it doubles the power of your existing eye pieces).

 

A telescope is only as good as the person driving it. A visit to a college astronomy department or local astronomy club is your best bet. Failing that, the cloudynights.com forum is an excellent place to find scope reviews and learn the basics of using a scope and finding your targets. Bookwise, I recommend "Turn Left at Orion" for getting started.