On Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 3:21:53 PM UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2016 11:14:39 -0700 (PDT), wsnell01 wrote:

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.

Very few kids would have the patience to try and make a shaky,
over-magnified telescope work.

Most scopes will have at least one eyepiece that provides reasonably low power magnification and reasonably wide FOV. Smart kids (you weren't) figure that out and smart kids (you weren't) figure out how to beef up the mount, deal with its quirks or replace it, or their parents are smart enough (yours weren't) to help them.


I have little doubt that such products
have turned vastly more people away from astronomy than they ever
created.

Incorrect. If one's level of interest is low to begin with, the best scope in the world won't help. If one's interest high to begin with, a poor scope will not ruin that interest.


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.

I was simply stating my personal experience, like Bill. Your opinion
here, like always, is of no merit.

Obviously, you and others here had some small scopes that you didn't like but you still managed to find your way to the hobby. My opinion is more valid than yours, peterson. That small refractor of yours would have been a rare gem prior to the 20th century.


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.

I'm patient, and very intelligent. And I still lost years of
observing.

Your first telescope was really no worse than mine. However, I was smarter, more interested, more diligent and more resourceful than you.

Most people give up forever.

Most people aren't really all that interested to begin with. If they were, then planetaria and observatories would be mobbed and overrun with people every open house night.

People have other things to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies

Department store scopes let them test the waters. Buying a $500+ goto scope is too much of a commitment. You are -really- out of touch, peterson.