Telescope recomendations

[sawcarver]

Guys I have a non shooting related question. My 9 year old daughter wants a telescope for Christmas. I know there are lots of guys who know a bunch about optics on here.

Is there anything worth looking at in the $50-100 range that has decent glass?

 

[watercam]

When in doubt start with Celestron...
Try looking on Opticsplanet.com at their wares. They cater to all price points.

 

[T-shooter]

You'll need a tripod to use with it. A reflector telescope with an internal mirror is better than a refractor. Hand held it will be hard to see anything. I take pictures of the moon and with a 600mm lens, it's difficult to even find it hand held. You'll move and see a flash of white and then it's gone. A planet is next to impossible to find. Something that helps with a camera is a simple red-dot sight. You could probably glue a small piece of rail on the side of the telescope and use a cheap $25 red dot to help her locate what she's looking for.

 

[Mark204]

A buddy used this site to purchase one for his boy, he didn't have anything negative to say about them.

protelescope.com/Holiday/Deals

Mark

 

[USMCDOC]

i would look on Craigslist as well.. like this one i found on there

https://hickory.craigslist.org/spo/d/3-telescopes-sold-separately/6401959191.html

 

[wholman]

you see a lot of them in pawn shops.

 

[Deleted old_dood]

for a youngster. a bad telescope is worse than no telescope. Don't get carried away with magnification. You can see a lot more at lower powers. I was so impressed by reviews and user comments on this I almost got one myself (I'm 70). It's less than a box of 500 bullets more than you want to spend.
https://www.astronomerswithoutborde...roducts_id=4&zenid=sjdvf1ojlfhcogpnihkeoqm214

 

[scubohuntr]

You get the most scope for your buck with a Dobsonian reflector, but I wouldn't recommend one for a kid, as they are completely manual and don't hold position as well as some others. Some of the Celestron Maksutov-Cassegrain ("Maks") are reasonably priced, and with an image erector assembly can do double duty as a spotting scope. There are also some low priced Russian Maks around that I have heard good things about, but I have no experience with them. The really cheap "toy" scopes are worthless refractors (you need to spend five figures on a refractor before you get one worth having) and worse than no scope at all. There is a lot of fun to be had with a low-end variable power spotting scope and a budget camera tripod. The cheapest spotting scope and the ricketiest camera tripod are better than the "kids' 300X telescope kit" you'll find on sale at megamarts. You will get plenty of entertainment out of 50X. Point it at Orion, or Saturn, and be amazed. Careful with the moon at anything over about 10X, though- you can get enough light to injure your eyes without a filter. Lunar filters are cheap on Amazon and worthwhile.

There's an app for smartphones called SkyView that is a must-have for kids- point the camera at the sky and it will tell you what is there, constellations, stars, planets, satellites, old Russian rocket boosters, anything.

 

[sawcarver]

Thanks for the info guys, it's helping me find stuff for her. I know I dont,want anything cheap. I'll look into a lunar filter. My spotting scopes sit on manfrottos and she can use one of those.

I know as a kid we had a telescope that was cheap and couldn't see anything so we lost interest. I want to keep her interest not destroy it