Mark, What you need to consider is the ease of use and learning curve for a
newbie.
I can see you are making your choice based on price alone. You should be
thinking of how difficult it will be to use. You can stifle your father's
interest very quickly if he gets frustrated with using the equipment.
The scope you have chosen has no GOTO capability and in fact no motor drive
at all! That means he has to manually push it around to look for an object
and then keep turning a knob to keep it in view. This type of manual push
and pull astronomy is usually more comfortable with a wide field scope that
covers a larger piece of sky such as a Dobsonian or a Reflector.
You have choosen a refractor which has a very narrow field of view so
objects will zoom out of the field of view even before you can focus!
I would recommend one of the Meade ETX scopes or the Celestron NexStar
series. They all have GOTO capability to help your father find thousands of
sky objects and motor tracking to keep the object in the field of view for
enjoyable observation.
If you want him to lose interest quickly or need to move up to a better
scope then go ahead with your choice but remember, he will come to realize
you made the choice based on price alone without regard for its use.
George

"Mark" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I'm considering getting the Tal 100R as a gift for my father, he wants to
give astronomy a go. Would it be suitable? I've found it for £199.00 at

http://www.greenwich-observatory.co....ue_Refractors_
23.html, and it seems like a good price.

Thanks in advance.

Mark