General > General info Somewhat hot tub related

Looking at the Stars

(1/1)

Brookenstein:
I know there are some people on here that are star experts... so I was hoping someone could help me out here.

My son would like a telescope for his 7th birthday.

 I was wondering if you could look at what TRU sells and give your reccomendation.  Ideally $50 is what we would like to spend so this is what I want to know... keeping in mind this is for a 7 year old boy.
a) given the price restraint are any of these worth getting
b) is it worth spending a little more to get a better one, if so how much would he have to spend?
c) would he be able to see anything with these
d) realistically is he too young?
e) which one(s) would you reccomend (maybe top 2 or 3 if there wasn't much of a difference in case I can't find some of them)

http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?kw=telescope&f=Taxonomy%2FTRUS%2F2254197&f=Taxonomy%2FTRUS%2F2256399&f=Taxonomy%2FTRUS%2F2256543&fbc=1&fbn=Taxonomy%7CTelescopes&fbx=0

 
Thank you so much!!!!

wmccall:
If your limit is $50, buy a real good set of binoculars.  Any new telescope under $100 will be a huge disapointment that will gather dust.    

A few things to watch out for.

Find out the diameter of the eye pieces.   .965 is pure sh!t.  1.25" is good. 2" is top end.

Any scope that advertises by its maximum magnification is the equivalent of selling spa motors by BHP.  My scope cost around $1500 and on a good night strains to give a good image over 300X.   If you see a small refractor under $100 that says 6000x, take it out of the box and smash it to pieces right in the store. You will be doing someone else who might have bought it a favor.   If you want to go up to about $150 look for a 4.5" reflector that has 1.25 eye pieces.    Such a scope will give great images of Jupiter and Saturn.  (And Bonnibelle's crappy moon  ;))If you spend $150 and the kid loses interest you can get a lot of it back in resale.  If you buy a $50 scope, you could only resell if for .50  Now I'm off to check your link.

anne:
I'm no expert in scopes, but I used to be into birding, so I bought a really nice binocs, and they are quite good for looking at the stars, too. Not great, but still fun. I do wonder though if a 7 year old would be frustrated by the lack of stability. The cool thing about a scope is that you could direct it at something and then he could look through, and you'd know he was getting the right view. But then binocs are more multi-purpose, too

And I personally dont think he's too young, but I remember being about 7 and being really into the stars. I would have loved it.

mattNY:

--- Quote ---If you see a small refractor under $100 that says 6000x, take it out of the box and smash it to pieces right in the store. You will be doing someone else who might have bought it a favor.
--- End quote ---

Rofl, this struck me as pretty funny.  I can picture all those Walmart helpers piling on me with their happy-face smocks!

Brookenstein:
Bill,

Did you have a chance to take a look?  My cousin thought the $52 Astrolin would work well enough given the circumstances.  I looked at Discovery Store and thought theres looked nicer..

http://shopping.discovery.com/category-1_TELESCOPES/3_TELE_BG_REFRACTCHARTS-27995.html  I thought the $99 looked nice, but you have to pay an extra $15 shipping fee in addition to regular shipping.  My mom wasn't sure how different it really was from the TRU one.

Navigation

[0] Message Index