New solar 'scope -

[oobydooby]

Just spotted this from Celestron, what do you think.  Would it be a useful addition?

Fitted with permanent glass filter, so exclusively for white light solar viewing, less than $100 (£89... but would most likely be £100 when available in UK) for the whole setup.

https://www.astronomics.com/celestron-eclipsmart-50mm-solar-telescope-w-backpack-22060_p20520.aspx

[Cornelius Varley]

I don't see it offering anymore than a conventional refractor and a white light solar filter can provide. Looks more like a marketing opportunity for Celestron.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Same here. A decent refractor with a cheap Baader filter will almost certainly better this simple scope. What with current sizes of sunspots (pores more likely) I would say 50mm is a bit small. If you already have a small refractor (70-80mm), just get Baader film and make your own solar filter.

[ngwillym]

Ditto - probably aimed at the US market ready for their eclipse later this year

[ecuador]

This is pure marketing for this year's eclipse. It looks like they took a Travel Scope 50, got rid of one eyepiece, mounted permanently a glass filter and swapped the finder and erect diagonal. For $100 you can sure do better than that, e.g. even getting the much nicer Travel Scope 70 (nicer except that crap tripod) + a baader filter will give you way better results for the sun, and will be usable for everything else from terrestrial to stargazing.

It reminds me of my first telescope. Back in '88 my uncle gave me a "Halleyscope". A company had sold thousands of these when the comet came. As it was a 40mm refractor with a variable zoom (8x-32x) on a tiny toy tripod, you can imagine how bad it was at actually observing the comet Halley. However, years later, I did manage to get a nice pic of Hale-Bopp with it, although it required a 10 minute exposure (manual tracking) to get it on film.

[oobydooby]

My initial thoughts were that it might be useful for outreach as there are several days this year when it can be used at the observatory.  I have a Lunt and a Celestron 4se with a removable glass filter and a home made Baader film filter. I thought a cheapo with built in filter would be better with so many children around as my Lunt and Celestron are really rather expensive.