On Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 1:27:41 PM UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2016 09:53:35 -0700 (PDT), wsnell01 wrote:
peterson, who can't edit properly, wrote:

That's pretty similar to my own experience. I got a Tasco refractor,
probably around 2.5 inches on an altaz tripod. I saw Saturn well
enough, and spent a little time on the Moon, but it was pretty useless
for anything else. The lowest magnification was too high, and the
tripod was too shaky. Gave up on it after a few months and didn't
revisit visual astronomy again until my teens, when I got a 6" Newt
that had been damaged in a fire and which I rebuilt. I used that scope
for a long time.

Then you would have to agree that telescopes sold by department stores (your altaz Tasco, for example) are great! Any problems with your Tasco were largely due to pilot error, user ignorance or lack of interest. Do not argue with that.

No. The telescope was not useful because it was poorly designed.

No, it wasn't poorly designed. It just wasn't designed well enough for a spoiled brat.

It
did not work well enough to keep me interested in observational
astronomy.

That's YOUR problem. Most any amateur astronomer living prior to the 20th century and even quite a few of the world's poor today, would have killed (figuratively speaking) to own that telescope.

It did more harm than good.

You say that, yet you became quite re-interested when a salvageable astro telescope fell into your lap a few years later.

My early scopes weren't perfect either, but -I- stuck with it, improved them and then designed and built a six-inch from SCRATCH.