Skyliner 250px

[r.t.swing]

Still looking at this scope, but a few more questions to come. I understand that it is easy to swing around but my question relates to observing, say, the planets. How much friction is there in the mount? I ask because I'm wondering would a 5 year old perhaps constantly knock it off course so to speak and not get a good view?

[DrNeb]

you can mod it apparently to maker it smoother, i found mine quite tricky to move left to right precicsly.

Flat ground i find is a must, i suppose thats down to evenly distributing the weight of it.

it could be smoother, but if you loosen the bolt enough and have flat ground it's pretty darn good.

the 250px mind is a tall scope! a 5 year old wouldn't have a hope at reaching the eye piece and as it's a dobsonian mount, at high power you will have to keep moving it alot making steps a little tricky to use.

Under low power say with my 25mm eye piece im sure a 5 year old would be fine.

anything closer to 10 and i doubt they'd manage it. also, up is down, down is up, left is right and right is left. that might confuse them a little.

blumming good scope though.

[r.t.swing]

Thanks, he is tall for his age and not afraid of using a step. My concern was that he would knock it off target while trying to view. So if I set it up (realising things will move quickly under high magnification) Can the mount be tightened so as to stop him accidently moving it.

[kniclander]

I have two just 6 year olds. they don't knock it out of direction but they can't nudge it to track anything. hth

[r.t.swing]

Thats good to hear, I'll do the tracking.

[John]

Thats good to hear, I'll do the tracking.

Small point, it's much, much easier to track with a dob when the person viewing through the eyepiece is doing the tracking. In fact I don't think you could do it any other way - the movements are too fine to judge otherwise.

I'd invest in some widefield eyepieces (eg: Hyperions) as the objects will stay in the field of view for longer then - less nudging !.

[r.t.swing]

John thanks, I took your point on eyepieces an am currently doing the necessary research on widefield pieces. What I meant was I line it up then my son can look till the object moves out of view, then I track again.

[r.t.swing]

How do the skywatcher nirvana ones compare?

[russ]

We find lower power views are fine with my 7yr old. He uses a step to peer into the 12" and providing i keep the power lowish (120-130x), he is fine.

The Skywatcher Nirvana is a great eyepiece and the 7mm will be spot on with the 250PX. Mag will be 171x but in a nice large field.

[r.t.swing]

Thanks all, looks like the way to go.