Hello,

I'm interested in purchasing a telescope to see planets and get my kids interested in stargazing.  I may have missed a post on that but not sure what to get or direction to go.  Something easy is key to keep interest of my 7 and 9 yr olds.

Thank you very much :)

Without knowing more about you and your abilities we can't really give you a good recommendation beyond the basic more bang for your buck Dobsonian recommendation. Knowing your budget, size and weight restriction if any for storage and transportation might help us out here. Something else you want to consider for yourself is your own physical abilities to carry and set one up.

this-- http://www.celestron.com/c3/product.php?CatID=83&ProdID=568   its only $50 bucks, 7 and 9 nine year olds wont stay that way very long, but a good start for people that young

Here are a number of informative websites, some of which are now a bit dated, that deal with choosing a telescope:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=ss&id=9

http://skyandtelescope.com/howto/scopes/article_241_1.asp

http://www.skynewsmagazine.com/pages/telescope_tips.html

http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html

http://www.floridastars.org/telescop.html

http://www.company7.com/library/begin.html

http://www.quadibloc.com/science/opt0201.htm

http://starizona.com/acb/basics/equipmentbasics.aspx

http://starizona.com/acb/basics/equip_whichisbest.aspx

http://stupendous.rit.edu/richmond/answers/telescope.html

http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-C0D-504D19B-39CA3E80-prod5

See http://www.skynewsmagazine.com/PDFs/BestTelescopesUnder1000.pdf for an article on what the author considers to be the ten best telescopes for under $1,000.

http://www.televue.com/engine/page.asp?cat=5 has quite a bit of useful information on telescopes, eyepieces, optics, and other matters.

Be forewarned that many cheap "go-to" telescopes do not work as easily or as well as claimed and worst of all are aperture challenged.  A long focus (high f/ratio) 3 or 4-inch refractor of reasonable quality is a good choice as a starting telescope, although a 6-inch or, better still, an 8-inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount, known colloquially as a Dob, is probably a better one for most beginners.  Two of the better companies to consider are Orion and Zhumell.

Here are some reviews of the Orion XT8 SkyQuest Dob:

http://www.bpccs.com/lcas/Articles/xt8.htm

http://www.scopereviews.com/page1j.html#4

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1043

http://home.comcast.net/~astrohammer/opinionspage1.htm

http://www.eastvalleyastronomy.org/reviews/skyquestxt8.html

Dave Mitsky

I know everyone before me gave some really great ideas, as well as some great links for you to so some looking.  I thought I would just ring too.  lol

 Celestron makes a great introductory Dobsonian Reflector for a very small price.  I beleive the aperture is 2" (anybody may correct me if I am wrong).  It is low maintenance (obviously a pls with 7 and 9 year olds), and offerers some pretty good results.  I have a relatively small astronomy club around my area, and we have a few kids in it.  The Celestron First Scope is a pretty big hit with the small ones.  Generally, the younger kids, I have noticed, don't have the ability to spend an entire night star gazing, and may get bored looking at "small fuzzies" that capture our attention for hours, so the 2" Celestron scope is nearly perfect.  It gets the basics: The moon, the naked eye planets, the Orion nebula, and so on.

 A pair of binoculars is a great tool as well.  They may be too young for them, but binoculars is a great way to be able to learn where objects are in the sky.  I always teach the kids in my group that it is better to know where the things are before you go looking for them, than simply punching in some coordinates and letting the telescope do the work for you.

Whatever you do, though, don't buy a telescope from a place like WalMart, or an outlet store.  Over-the-counter telescopes (as I like to call them) offer high magnifications, but they are gimics.  Remember that magnification is simply a ratio (Focal Length of Scope / Focal Length of Eyepiece).

Again, Celestron's First Scope is a great suggestion.  It gets great results, is low maintenance, and you really can't beat the cost compared to much larger scopes.

 Clear skies!

Please by a "real" telescope or some binoculars.  You will be much happier with a simple refractor or Dobsonian Newtonian than a over busy computer controlled plastic piece of junk, like the Meade  I just saw yesterday at Costco next to a Christmas Tree. 

Buy from a telescope dealer like Scope City or Opt, or anyone advertised here, as they will give you good advice and a nice instrument for your family.  Your money will be far better spent in this way than feeding a giant conglomorate who wouldn't know one end of a scope from the other and couldn't care less if you threw the thing in the trash out of frustration six months later.

Rant over now.

L