Just bought my first telescope! How do I get/keep my 7 year olds interested in astronomy?

[Dave In Vermont]

If the Moon at night is a good target foryou and your kids, then by day the exploring can continue with this wonderful piece of free software: The Virtual Moon Atlas:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualmoon/

If was lost on the Moon, this would be my prefered road-map.

Dave

[hippie]

Welcome to SGL Dub .

[ollypenrice]

Plenty of practice in the daytime on terrestrial targets. Children often find telescopes difficult at first, even closing the wrong eye!

I wouldn't leave them unattended by day becaue of the extreme danger of looking at the sun. The danger would apply also to their friends who might be less influenced by your instructions not to observe it. The sun can be safely observed using a proper front filter but I would make that 'supervised only,' too.

Olly

[Charon]

Hi and welcome from Crete.

[Paz]

Welcome to SGL!

I would ensure your scope is already set up or practice setting up your scope so that you can do it quickly - little people have no patience to wait for such things! Pick a couple of simple targets that don't take time to find - I agree the moon and Jupiter are good ones. Keep it fairly short and don't expect too much - they might be stoked or they might not be bothered!

With regard to solar viewing I would personally recommend giving that a miss - it's too much of a risk with lots of little people to keep an eye on (you have to be vigilant all the time) unless you are completely familiar with how to do it safely and have other grown ups on hand to keep it safe.