Sarah

This is a difficult one. I agree that for a small amount of money it could be worth seeing whether there is enough to spark an interest.

We purchased a Jessops reflector for around £35 about 2.5 years ago. I think ours was a 76mm reflector. We didn't want to spend much money on a hobby we didn't know whether we would enjoy. So for us it was a good starting point. Our mount was not very stable, so we had difficulty getting a steady view, but despite this, we had some great views of the moon, M31 and M45. And that was more than enough to spark our interest. After those early views we were hooked and then felt much happier about investing in the purchase of a better quality telescope and mount.

If it wasn't for our little Jessops scope we may never have taken the plunge into astronomy.