Good budget scope for me & my 8 year old

[Rosty]

Hi sky scanners any advice would be welcome as my ickle one has mentioned a scope quite a bit & its some thing i'v always wanted as well but money is an issue is a jessops 800 80 any good???

[rory]

dont do a jessops mate . whats your budget ? guys here will give really good advice within your budget.

also would it be used in the garden at home or will it need to be portable ?

oh and welcome to the forum ..

[AndyH]

2nd hand 'Tal' telescopes(various sizes) are superb bargains.

[Telrad]

What's your budget?

[rory]

okay just seen the jessops scope you had in mind at around £50

the tripod mount looks terrible.

if your budget is around that mark and you want something new .i suggest the heritage skywatcher dobsonian scopes.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-heritage-76-mini-dobsonian.html

[Telrad]

Rosty, binoculars are excellent for observing IMO

Maybe a pair of 10x50s or 25x70s?

[DOBBY]

25 x 70 is prolly a bit heavy for an 8 yr old...& would need a decent tripod

as telrad asked... whats ya budget ??

[Rosty]

Thanks for the WARM WELCOME !! my budgets £60 ish, We live in a dark village but would be good to take it out & about

[brantuk]

I reckon you can't beat one of these for your budget for an 8yr old:

First Light Optics - Skywatcher Heritage 76 Mini Dobsonian

Good luck

[umadog]

Welcome!

I must say, I worry a little about how well an f/4 telescope built like that will actually work. I admit I haven't used one, though. I'd worry it would be hard to focus and that finder doesn't look like it's up to much. It's unlikely it will ever get properly collimated and even if it does, the views will be full of coma and astigmatism.

I know it meets the budget, but I think you can probably do better. I realise it's for an 8 year old, but a child will need help with a telescope so this is something you'll be doing together. The Skyliner 150P Dobsonian will set you back 200 quid new. Maybe you can get one half price on the second hand market. That would be a better instrument overall and a much more reasonable f/7.8 focal ratio. In practical terms, that means you'll get much sharper and brighter views.

[ronin]

Hi, how about this70mm 700 focal length scope from Telescope Services:

Starscope 70/700mm Refraktor Teleskop mit Montierung & Stativ

TS are pretty good to deal with and provide a good service.

The scope is 69Euro, say about 12Euro for carriage. So comes in about right.

After that check out sites like Opticstar and see what they have, but I think their least expensive is around £135, the AR80. Seems to be good but over the budget.

Heard that Rother Valley Optics are selling the Chinese scopes just not sure if I have it correct nor which scopes. Another one to go look at.

Also check Sky's the Limit. They have scopes but again unsure where they start. Think they may be bigger and so more expensive.

If this is a first dabble then the 70 from TS should give you an idea, your 8 year old should be OK with it as well.

When possible get something like a 32mm eyepiece, cheap plossl, to go with it. Wider view so easier to find things.

Will warn you that starting off with something like this may be inexpensive but has its drawbacks. You have to find everything and as the earth rotates things slip out of view. Could get frustrating. But if you appreciate this then go for it.

Nothing wrong with a 70mm, have a couple myself. Jupiter is good at even 30x magnification.

Sorry, read the budget as £80 for some reason.

[brantuk]

Great advice there from Umadog - if you can extend the budget to a 150P as suggested then you'd be onto a much more satisfying scope for you and your lad

[heathenwoods]

Whilst everything that's been said above about marked improvements in the scopes available to you by increasing your budget is true, if you are working to a fixed budget then I think it's worth taking the plunge. Bearing in mind that it is probably worth listening to the advice steering you away from Argos/Jessops etc, it is still possible to get real satisfaction from a bottom end 'scope.

In October i got my eldest (9) a Celestron Firstscope. It's 76/300 and, by all standards, a bit pants. However, since then we've seen Jupiter and all 4 Gallilean moons, Pleaides up close and personal, M31, the Orion nebula and NGC2244. We probably would have seen more if it weren't for the recent clouds. And we have been blown away each time.

You won't see much with a cheap scope but you'll see more than you would have done otherwise. Bins may well be a better bet in some way but if your 8 year old is owt like mine then a telescope has a touch of space exploration about it in a way that bins sadly don't.

Be warned tho'. It's only taken me a month to be on the search for a better (albeit bargin basement 2nd hand) scope for me. Which will filter down to him when I've saved for a light bucket in a couple of years (when his 76/300 will filter down to his little brother)...

...if you can squeeze a little more out of your budget it might save you spending more a short while later when the bug bites...

[Stu]

I would agree with alot of what you say heathenwood. Any scope is better than no scope, and I tend to think that a scope is easier for a child to use because it has a mount and can more easily be pointed at things than a pair of bins.

If £60 is your budget then that's your budget so get what you can for that and start observing. Be realistic about what you are going to see and work up from there. Secondhand is a very good option

Stu

[sabana]

£60 is a very small budget. You'll want a telescope that holds collimation well as you won't have a collimator. Also no money for eyepieces.

A used refractor sounds your best bet.

[gdheib0430]

Don't know if they will ship overseas cheaply, but my 3" reflector from orion was a great deal at $99 (~60 pounds). It came nearly perfectly colminated and was really easy to adjust that...had a small refractor when I was a kid in the 80s and this is a big step forward...great for gathering light at a beginner level and the finderscope was really easy to align. I have seen jupiter in pretty good detail and the rings of saturn so far but haven't had the time to look at anything else yet. It came with a 25mm and 10mm eyepiece and can be a tiny bit limiting, but with the beginner alt az mount it is nice because it lets me focus on learning colmination and how to find objects with my eye before moving on to an eq mount.

yeah the first night I saw Jupiture, I could pick out the main two cloud bands and see all four Galaleain (sp) moons. I was rather impressed.

Orion SpaceProbe 3 Altazimuth Reflector Telescope | Orion Telescopes

If anything I am sure celestron has a similar scope but a refractor would be just as good but I'd recommend an easy to use mount to start out Hope this helps and sorry for any mispellings still trying to get all the terminology down.

[perrin6]

I had a cheap refractor once and although it was exciting at the time and showed a few amazing things eg the moon, saturns rings, a fuzzy jupiter, it was terribly frustrating trying to find objects to look at, wobbly and was a five minute wonder really. Best to buy a secondhand good scope.

[umadog]

Exactly: what you want to avoid is frustration. You don't need to spend a fortune, but there is a lower limit beyond which you risk a bad experience.

[Rich MedRev]

Rosty,

The problem with a £60 budget is whatever you'd buy new would be very limiting indeed, second hand you'll need to be very patient and somewhat vigilant to find a decent scope for the money. Something like a 5" Reflector or an 80mm Refractor as a minimum or else you will be looking to upgrade very quickly.

bear in mind you need to budget for a decent star atlas and probably a couple of decent eyepieces as well.

Initially I would get some decent binoculars and join your local astro society and try to join them for some local observing. This way you'll get to try various scopes and be able to make a better decision on what is best for you and your ickle one!

[Stu]

Very good suggestion about joining an astro society and going along to events to look through other scopes. They may even have loan scopes you could borrow.

From experience with binoculars with my children, I really think they struggle to find anything other than the moon, and holding them still is a challenge. At least with a scope it can be pointed at a target

There is plenty of information on the web to download star maps which will get you going, or download stellarium to show you where to look, all free. If there is a library nearby they will have something to start off with.

If the budget can be stretched a bit then you should pick up something second hand. If not, my view is still that it's better to get observing somehow, to get your child's interest and imagination going rather than wait too long.

Stu

[rory]

good advice. i only mentioned the heritage dobs as a "new" buy.

i would personally ( as would most of others by the look of it) on a small budget,go 2nd hand.

my 90mm refractor cost me £112, but normally they are more like £170 mark.

still quite cheap in the scheme of things. BUT 2nd hand my scope would sell for about £50-70. and like umadog mentions ,the skywatcher dobs are bargains. 6" new or second hand 8" are around same price .

[umadog]

The other thing with binos is that a lot of kids aren't impressed by them. They want a TELESCOPE, because that's amazing

[Telrad]

The other thing with binos is that a lot of kids aren't impressed by them. They want a TELESCOPE, because that's amazing

Umadog - that's probably true. Although when I was young, I was REALLY impressed with what I could see through my binoculars!

[umadog]

That's good to hear. Maybe I'm wrong then.

[Telrad]

I must the only one to think this, but all other things being equal (aperture, magnification, quality of optics, etc ) binoculars can have a performance edge sometimes. IMO This is probably why so many astronomers use giant binoculars to hunt for comets... I would say, use binoculars to find the object and see it in perspective with a wide field background. Then crank up the power with a telescope and study it in detail - which is exactly what I did when I bought my first telescope!