Best telescope for a kid?

Question

I am considering the purchase of a telescope for my daughter. In checking out a few, I quickly became confused regarding the various factors. Which is better... reflecting or refracting? How much power do I need? Etc.

Answer 1

Cirric makes a good point, here. A first telescope promises to be an extremely frustrating experience and will, most likely, end up in a closet, or in the basement. Other than the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter, which are always a thrill, finding and capturing a Star can be very difficult for a beginner. And most Stars look alike from the Earth and there is little to nothing that a new viewer will gain from it, unless they can be awed thinking about the distance of the object, before it glides from view.

I would suggest better ways to attract this "hobby" to a younger person before you go for the scope. First, binoculars and charts. This will give your daughter the bigger picture, by helping her locate objects and learn their proximity to other objects. I guarantee that when you are out there on a dark night with her, she will get really excited when she is able to find an object off a chart. Second, check-out local clubs, where you will find a plethora of people that will be willing to share their experiences and scopes with her. The enthusiasm will rub off on her. There may be an observatory nearby, especially if you are near a college. Third, fuel her imagination by doing online searches to see what other people are doing, especially with photography and CCD imaging. Hot stuff. "Wanna learn how to do this, honey? Well first you have to learn the basics." Fourth, keep your eyes open for up-coming events, such as planet displays and let her know in advance what you will be looking at. Study it, so she will have something to go on while she's looking at them.

There's a lot to discover out there, so make sure that she has a partner (you) during the awkward phases of sky watching. This "awkward phase" can last decades. :)

Update: After reading some of the other reviews, I stand my ground here. Sky watching should be a fun hobby, not a college education. I guarantee to you that if you go straight for the scope, it will end up in the closet. If it's not fun, she won't stick with it. Sounds to me like Dad never got a telescope when he was a kid. Do it right.

Answer 2

Don't worry about power. Size does matter, but for a kid you can get a good telescope for in between $100-200. Realize that it really is the optics that matter. Department store ones usually don't have quality optics. Look at name brand ones. Like Meade, Orion, Celestron are a few. If you want a "goto" telescope it'll be more expensive. Dobsonian telescopes have great size for the buck, but may be a little much for a kid. Refracting have the best image but are more expensive for good optics. Reflecting have a good mix of both.
I like EXT Premier. It has goto as well as something called Level North Technology so it automatically finds Polar North for you and then you can start choosing objects to look at. Otherwise you need a starchart or be able to polar align the scope every time you want to view. The drawback is the cost. $750- 1200. Depending on mirror coatings.

Answer 3

The telescope you listed is fine for VERY easy to see things like the moon, bright stars MAYBE saturn rings. But in my opinion you should get something with a little bigger aperture, because 50mm telescopes tend to be cheap the viewing tends to be dim because the bigger the aperture the more light can get in the telescope therefore deeper space objects, better clearity of the moon planets also viewing gets brighter. The standard size for a telescope is 60mm. My first telescope was a Meade it had a 114mm aperture for only 140 bucks, and it was a good buy, saw many deep sky objects the moon was very clear. But if you plan to use it only once than i guess its fine, although there are many good telescopes with 70mm, 80mm aperture for a good deal. Happy Viewing :)

Answer 4

Which type of telescope is "better" depends on a lot of things such as the quality of the individual telescope and what you intend on using it for.

Magnification is not what you should be looking for. The "power" in a telescope lies in it's aperture. Aperture is the diameter of the telescope's lens if it's a refractor and mirror if it's a reflector. The larger the lens or mirror is in diameter, the more light the telescope can collect and the more you can see. Most things in space are too dim for the human eye to see and the telescope makes them brighter by collecting the spread out light and condensing it for us. More aperture also lets you use higher magnification eyepieces (yes, you can change eyepieces).

Refractors use a lens in the front of the telesope to collect light.
Reflectors use a concave mirror (think satellite dish shped) in the back of the telescope to collect light.

All lenses, by themsleves, suffer from a phenomena called chromatic aberration. Different colors of light are focused to slightly different points by the lens. Basically this means that images will have a distortion that causes them to appear to have a halo of color. In some more expensive refractors, this is minimized or even irradicated by the use of special coatings and by using multiple lenses of certain shapes and special material. Refractors with some correction for this problem are called achromatic. One that fully correct for this are called apochromatic.

Refractors are the most expensive type of telescope per inch of aperture because lenses are expensive to make.

Because lenses are expensive to make, and heavy at that, refractors are usually not large enough to be used for deep space viewing so if you want to look at a lot of galaxies or dim nebula then a refractor is the wrong telescope. If you want to look at planets and star clusters then a refractor is a good choice if you can afford a large enough apochromatic one. A refractor that is worth your money will cost about $500. Anything cheaper won't be worth your money and they aren't good all around telescopes because they are so small.

Reflectors, on the other hand, don't suffer from chromatic aberration and if they are made well they typically have no noticable optical defects. Mirrors are far cheaper to make per inch of aperture than lenses and so large telescopes tend to be reflectors. Most reflectors, even the cheapo ones, are large enough to let you view planets, star clusters, nebula, and a few galaxies.

The smallest amount of aperture a telescope should have to let you see a variety of things is 4.5" (this is 114mm). Unless you have a few thousand dollars, this telescope will be a reflector.

What I recommend you get your daughter is a reflector made by Meade, Celestron or Orion. It should be no smaller than 4.5"
You did not say the price range but I'll assume you don't want to spend more than $300 and that you want to buy it new so I recommend you buy a type of reflector called a Dobsonian. Orion Telescopes, at http://www.oriontelescopes.com makes very good Dobsonians so I recommend you go to the website and find one in your price range.

You can go to http://hometown.aol.com/siriusbc/telescopes.htm to learn more about telescopes.

Answer 5

I have already made that mistake and the hardest thing to overcome is the fact that they live in a very large city. The humidity is a little high and the city lights reflect so bad u can hardly find anything.

Answer 6

it all depends on how old ur daughter is. if she is between 6 and 10 then buy her something simple. if she is above 13 then buy her something complicated, you know something with a CD-rom in the package, ect

Answer 7

Hi. Have you considered a good pair of binoculars to start?