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Old November 20th 03, 02:59 PM
Bluewater
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Default Telescope for Child


"Vedo" wrote in message
m...
I am thinking of getting a Celestron 114gt for my 8 year old daughter.
Anyone have one of these and what do you think about it?

Thanks
Vedo


As a newbie to telescope(or astronomy), I would like to tell you about
my experience. I don't intend to give you advice as a astronomer. I am
simply telling you my experience as a parent.

I bought a hardly used second-hand Tasco 114mm reflector for my 6 year
old daughter nearly for nothing which many people call total crap and should
be avoided at any cost. They say it's a good idea to buy a pair of binos
instead or buy something more costlier for the first telescope. This seems
to be the advice shared by most experienced amateur astronomers. The logic
behind this is that with at least 6" telescope you have the decent view of
the sky and you won't get disappointed.

I think their advice is quite legitimate and worth listen to, I had doubt
as to the suitability of such expensive and heavy telescope for young
children. I raised this issue somewhere else and was accused of being a toy
shop salesman trying to deceive people into buying cheap telescopes. I
understand their concern over their relatively inferior eyepieces and low
quality mount or other parts made from cheap materials.

With my limited experiences regarding the telescope in general, I have
gather that watching sky has three elements: Sky, observation instrument and
person watching the sky. The majority of advice given to the first time
buyer of telescope is based purely upon the sky, ignoring the educational
value for young children. The logical step for young children who want to
learn about the sky or astronomy, seriously speaking, is to join a local
astronomy club and begin learning the basics before venturing into more
sophisticate observation.

However, the telescope, even a cheap telescope has it's own value for
children, in my opinion. When I first brought the telescope, my daughter was
very excited to see it. Not many children of her age has got a telescope
of
their own, though some children may have seen them belonging to their
parents at home. On the very first night she read through a small
children's encyclopedic book and got some basic knowledge necessary for her
age.

My daughter hasn't seen much through the telescope for the past two
months since she had got the telescope partly because her daily pattern
doesn't always match the viewing condition and my life pattern and partly
because the telescope is too big for her or her mum to handle. Besides she
has a bit of fear of darkness.

I had started teaching the basic principle of telescope and astronomy
before I acquired the telescope by making simple telescope out of reading
glasses and a lens taken out from broken scanner and watching sky together
locating some constellations. Then we made a pinhole camera and water drop
microscope simply to demonstrate the basic principles of lights and lens.

Though she doesn't fully understand it, the wow factor is quite important
in education. With the what they call 'crap' telescope, she has watched the
moon, mars and Saturn. I don't want her get her view everything in hasty.
The telescope came with ,965" eyepieces of 20mm and 4mm. The optical quality
is not best but it's quite viewable for educational purpose.

The other day I needed to get the moon fully in the view so I made an
eyepiece of low power with lenses taken out from her toy. And I also made a
microscope with the eyepieces using the tiny lens saved from the scanner as
an object lens and 20mm as an eyepiece. We had quite good view of onion skin
with this home-made microscope and my daughter learned a lot. You can make
the microscope your self with 4mm eyepiece as an object lens though
magnification is not so great.

Next time we go out to see the moon I will try to tell her about the
craters on the moon starting with Kepler and Copernicus craters and the
impact it may bring to the earth if that were happen on the earth with the
experiment by throwing a stone on a puddle, on the flour and on the hard
brick.

In spite of clear-cut bisectomy dividing the crap and the decent , toy
and observational instrument most people think about telescope, I have
gathered so far that even a cheap telescope has lots of potential for
educational purpose. Scientists encourage children looking through even the
cheapest microscope, photographers do the same to children. Why not
Astronomy?

It seems quite certain that you may not get your children into the
prestigious club of "amateur astronomy,' with those telescope branded
junkies, in my opinion no matter what kind the telescope is given to the
child, it is important to get her to make most out of it . Even 4.5"
telescope I have got is too heavy and EQ mount is too complicated for
children I guess.

When my daughter saw the face of the moon, the first thing she said was
'wow.' When she saw the rings of Saturn, she seemed surprised to see the
rings but a little disappointed. She must have thought that the image would
be much bigger as big as the one on the book. When I showed her the Sun(with
filter of course), her reaction was less impressive. She thought it was dull
to look at the sun.

For children, wow factor should never be underestimated. Usually, 5-7
year olds wow at the instruments and from 8 year on they are beginning to
explorer through telescope only if he or she is given the proper chance. In
order for the 8 year old to fully take advantage of telescope, I think it
should be near at hand, preferably bedside, with which he or she can play
and look through often without worrying about breaking it. That way I think
the children can grow interest in astronomy or science as a whole.

Now the Tasco I have got is too big I am thinking of buying a smaller
refractor. For this reason maybe a pair of binoculars might be suitable as
'amateur astronomers suggest but the binoculars lack important wow factor.
And low powered binoculars will never achieve what they can see even with
small cheap refractor and high powered ones will be unsuitable for children
without proper support. Besides they can't see the objects with binoculars
near the zenith without breaking necks.

In sum, what I am thinking about telescope for educational purpose is
quite different from the advice given by other amateur astronomers.
Considering other factors, merely watching sharp and crisp deep sky objects,
taking photographs and drawing star chart is not what they need. I think the
telescope that can lay foundation for children's future scientific knowledge
is the best telescope. It doesn't necessarily mean that 6" Telescope with
quality eyepieces.