asked to recommend a scope for a teenager

[Ags]

A teenage relative got the astro bug after a visit where we had a look at some stars and planets together. Now his mom wants to buy him a good telescope for Christmas. Her budget is £100, but she liked the suggestions I made above that price range.

In the end I suggested a skyliner 150 dob for 179 pounds, followed up by the 130 heritage dob and the evostar 90 on the AZ3. I only suggested the evostar as a maintenance-free, collimation-free alternative close to her budget.

Anything obviously wrong with the suggestions (except they are all over her budget...)?

[Astro_Baby]

Thres a 130PM for sale in the second hand section on here for a ton......now that's a pretty decent beginners scope and inside her budget too.

[Moonshane]

if they can afford to stretch the budget I think the dob would be a fine first scope. easy to use, good light gathering and quite slow too so collimation not too big an issue. plus eyepieces don't have to be expensive to work well.

A used one would be much closer to budget but you'd need to do more work to find a good one.

the eyepiece point is an important one I think as it won't cost the Earth in accessories if they buy carefully at f8. as an example, I was shocked the other night how relatively close in performance a 10mm TV Radian was when compared to a cheapo plastic bodied 20mm Kellner in a cheap skywatcher 2x barlow (not the plastic one) in my 6" f11. it will be a different story when I check later in my f5.3 dob I suspect (hope!!).

[sixela]

A teenage relative got the astro bug after a visit where we had a look at some stars and planets together. Now his mom wants to buy him a good telescope for Christmas. Her budget is £100, but she liked the suggestions I made above that price range.

In the end I suggested a skyliner 150 dob for 179 pounds, followed up by the 130 heritage dob and the evostar 90 on the AZ3.

Pretty much the recommendations I'd have made.

[pvaz]

The dob is the best but the maintnence free reflector is nice to. I gave a evostar 90 on AZ3 to my little sister. The scope is good, but show considerably less them my dob. The AZ3 mount is also very stable. The stock EPs are only MAs so even worts then the regular stock plossls and the finder scope is useless.

Oh and the 45º diagonal is not very comfortable to use either. Anyway I can't see her collimating the scope so I think it was the right choise and I gave her some decent SWA EPs, a barlow and a telrad. Now I need to get her a decent diagonal and it will be a fine scope.