The IYA 2009 Galileoscope!

[MeerkatinBKK]

Haven't seen any mention of this on SGL so thought I'd bring it to everyone's notice as I just came across it by chance.

As part of IYA2009, the IAU has teamed up with the American Astronomical Society to produce a cheap telescope for educational/outreach use; the Galileoscope. It's a 50mm f10 achromatic refractor, complete with 20mm eyepiece and 2x Barlow, mounts onto a standard photo-tripod screw and accepts 1 1/4" lenses & accessories. The best bit? The price...USD 15 each + shipping, or $12.50 for orders over 100 scopes. Incredible to think that you can buy a telescope for a tenner! Full specs here.

I'm a little concerned that at this price it might suffer the same problem directed at most department store scopes - that it will actually do more to turn people off astronomy that onto it, so will be interested to see how it performs in the field. The blurb on the website tries to address this, so maybe they've made it work. Certainly for developing countries - like Thailand where I'm currently based - this should be a boon, and I'm going to go and buy a couple anyway as I always attract a bunch of local children whenever I set up my NexStar.

Edited to add: I found a video of the moon being shot through it

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