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Beginner Telescope for an 8 year old with glasses


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Hi,

 I was hoping you could help me narrow this down.   I'm looking for a telescope for my 8 year old daughter who wear glasses, my budget is £100 (was £50 but realized that this isnt really going to get me much).   I can't really afford much more than that.  

What i am hoping for is something that will give her some eye opening views of the moon and hopefully make out some planets.   Doing some research landed me on this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skywatcher-HERITAGE-100P-Parabolic-Dobsonian-Telescope/dp/B00IOLZBXI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I like the mount which seems portable enough to use on the garden table or take with us camping, and it looks fairly easy to setup.   But really , even after a few hours on the internet, i am pretty clueless so any advice would be great!

Sorry also the fact that she has to wear glasses I am guessing is going to cause some issues with the viewing?  Is there anything to help with that?

Cheers,

Ian.

 

 

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Hello and welcome to SGL. The Heritage 100p is probably the best sub £100 telescope, unless you can find its big brother Heritage 130P s/h (new £130 ish). The short focal length of the telescope (400mm) plus the supplied 10mm eyepiece (maximum magnification 40x) will give a view of the moon similar to this

astronomy_tools_fov.thumb.png.5d545702dc7583c56f8e625e6cdd88c9.png

The telescope is also supplied with a barlow lens which will double the magnification to give this view of the moon

5a200f50ac241_astronomy_tools_fov(1).thumb.png.9c589683e59c7b770240fcb95c6b77db.png

Saturn at this magnification (80x) will look like this

5a200fd2085e4_astronomy_tools_fov(2).thumb.png.ca81dc4143cfde72c793aed170dcbadd.png

The telescope is probably better suited to wide field views of star clusters etc than planets

 

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Hi Ian,

Although I don't have any personal experience with the Heritage 100P (I'm sure others will be along shortly who have), it is likely the best buy for your budget.  Skywatcher are a respected brand and the 100P is likely to outperform anything you might pick up in [insert your favourite supermarket brand here].

In terms of wearing glasses to observe, I can sympathise!  Firstly, do you know whether your daughter's prescription corrects for astigmatism (if you have a copy of her prescription, it will have some numbers in the Cylinder column if so)?  If it doesn't, then she won't need to wear her glasses to observe - the focuser on the telescope will deal with any short-sightedness.  If they are needed for astigmatism, wearing them to observe would probably be preferred.  In that case, most eyepieces have a fold-down rubber eye cup to allow those wearing glasses to get closer to the eyepiece.

FLO have an unboxing video, which will give you an idea of exactly what you'd be buying...https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-heritage-100p-tabletop-dobsonian.html

Ian

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Hi Gingercream,

Plan to spend a few days reading up on scopes before making your purchase for your daughter.

If you have a garden table then a great child friendly scope within budget is this one (as you already noted! ) :

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-heritage-100p-tabletop-dobsonian.html

For slightly more money, there is a similar scope with more aperture (bigger aperture = more objects to see!)

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

Do a SEARCH on this forum for these 2 scopes and you will find plenty of reviews etc. Also have a search on youtube for some videos.

Finally, when it comes to purchase, our sponsors offer great prices and a 30 day no-quibble return guarantee so I suggest you consider buying from them for piece of mind and ease of return if needed.

You mentioned that your daughter wears glasses (so do I), if it is a minor prescription then you can view without glasses and use the scopes focuser to adjust to her eyesight. If she has a big prescription then you may need to buy ADDITIONAL EYEPIECES to use with the scope. You will need to buy eyepieces that offer "EYE RELIEF of more than 15mm" (this is the distance that the eyeball needs to be from the eyepiece, so 15mm + allows plenty of room for the glasses).

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-5mm-ed-eyepiece.html

Star Guiders offer 16mm eye relief and are great eyepieces, if you watch the second hand section on this website then you can save 30% on new prices.

BUT DONT BUY ANY EXTRAS UNTIL YOU HAVE USED THE SCOPE AND THE SUPPLIED ACCESSORIES and got used to them.

Do use the scope in daylight (do not look at the SUN) on distant trees, chimneys etc to get used to using it BEFORE you go out in the dark.

HTH,

Alan

 

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