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Good starter scope for kids


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Hi folks does anyone recomend a scope for kids? My daughter has grown to love the hobby and would like a decent scope of her own I would like her to have one that's half decent fir observing plants and the moon any suggestions are welcone

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A 114 skyhawk on a heritage dob mount might make a great scope for the young un

Q: why stick a 114mm scope on a Heritage mount, when the Heritage mount comes with a 130mm scope?. Am i missing something here?. The 114 has a longer focal length (IIRC). Would that be a big factor, and if so, why?.

Paul

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I think a dob is a good idea I am buying a 200p but it's a little large hot her

If you want to buy her a 200mm Dob (great and most popular Dob), i'd try and take her along to a club or even an astronomy retailer to see if she can actually see through the eyepiece when its pointed upwards to an elevation of 45 degrees and beyond. Also they (200mm Dobs) are quite heavy and cumbersome to move from their storage location to observing location.

I'm by no means trying to talk you out of buying one and i have never used one simply because its not suitable for me.  

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For a young one, i would recommend a nice little 80-100 refractor. Easy to carry around, no regular collimation, not so susceptible to knocks. My 9 year old and 11 year old girls love my big 150, but on their own they can use my 60mm frac on its Alt/Az mount and look at the moon, Jupiter and Venus.

I would be tempted to get something like this for my girls.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/az-goto/skywatcher-startravel-102-synscan-az-goto.html

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I have kids the same age, so its just the experience i have had so far with mine. Hope yours get as much out of it as mine do. The Synscan amazes my girls, they just love watching it move itself and miraculously be on Jupiter after looking at Venus!

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A refractor looks like what a child can expect a telescope to look like

This is very true as well, plus like Luke said above, you need to make sure she can reach the EP when looking high up, in a refractor the EP goes down as you look up, in a dob, it goes upwards and may well be out of reach.

Matt.

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I'm not convinced that a refractor is the right way to go. While they do need little set-up and maintaining, you are delving into the world of counterweights and almost having to be a contortionist to use them properly. I suppose the contortionist bit can be avoided simply by rotating the star diagonal and eyepiece. I just never got on with my refractor (loved the scope itself 90mm and focal length of 1000mm), i hated the EQ mount and wobbly bob tripod. I think for many reasons and for many people, there is no better scope then the Skywatcher Heritage 130p. You take it out of the box, extend the truss limbs,insert an eyepiece,focus it on an object and you are doing astronomy.............all within about 2-3 mins. You can if you want place it on a table or even just set it down on the ground. Either way is good.

I'm not saying refracts are bad. They are bloomin brilliant. I just think Dob' are easier to use, cheaper (per say) and you get more aperture because mirrors are less costly to make then glass lens'.

Just my thoughts and experience. Mind you i am in a wheelchair, so slightly bias towards the Heritage. 

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But a child can track an EQ mount once it has been roughly (Even VERY roughly) set to north and the Dec to 51 deg. However the same child in my experience can not track even Jupiter very well with a Dob. They will lose the target and quickly get fed up...which is what happened with my kids with my friends Dob. On an EQ mount, once its on target, its one knob to track. With Sysnscan its even easier!

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