Tal 100R for a newbie

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....actors_23.html, and it seems like a good price.

Thanks in advance.

Mark

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

"Duke" wrote in message
.. .
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
Normal comments: :-)

1) The scope is good value for money in the UK.
2) The FOV, is not _that_ small.
3) Goto, can be a waste of money better spent on optics.

However those things having been said, the lack of a tracking motor, _will_
make this annoying. Basically, there are two choices in this. Either have an
inherently easy to point scope with a reasonably wide FOV, or have a motor.
Using manual drive will be annoying on this scope.
The tripod particularly is good for a scope of this price range.
If you are sure that he will enjoy 'finding' things (which is a good things
in terms of teaching you the sky), and your conditions are not too light
polluted, then consider one of the simply motorised versions in the same
range. However _especially_ is there is a reasonable amount of light
pollution, Goto, then allows things that would otherwise be pigs to find, to
be relatively easily located.
The larger TAL-2M, is a very competent scope used by a lot of people. As
said above, the small 'Goto' scopes from Meade and Celestron, do have the
big edge in terms of finding things, but the smaller models, are very
limited on what they can see.
In light polluted conditions, it can be very hard to locate things, which is
one reason that Goto has become so popular.
Though they will see less, in some ways, I'd say that a pair of the Canon
10*30IS binoculars would be a 'better' buy, unles you can push the budget up
somewhat. These have the advantage of being useable for other things in the
daytime, and though they won't see the dimmer objects visible in a larger
scope, they _will_ see things that may suprise. Some things are often too
large to be seen in a scope, and for these binoculars 'win'.
Really, it'd be worth seeing if there is a local astronomy club, and if so,
try to get your father along to a meeting. If the weather permits some
observation, you may be able to find out whether this is a good way to go.

Best Wishes

"Roger Hamlett" wrote in message
...

Normal comments: :-)

1) The scope is good value for money in the UK.
That is probably true, but there are other TAL scopes on the same page which
are better and just as good a value.
2) The FOV, is not _that_ small.
Well, this scope with the 10mm eyepiece has half a degree FOV. Pretty hard
for a newbie to find a faint fuzzy.
Just below the Tal 100r there are two better choices in my book.
The StarTravel-80 and the StarTravel-102. These will have about 3 times the
FOV (estimated), give a brighter view and
be easier to handle as a manual scope. The 80mm is cheaper at 179 pounds
and the 102 a little more expensive
at 259 pounds. Oh, and they come with a barlow if you want that narrower
FOV.
3) Goto, can be a waste of money better spent on optics.
I have seven GOTO scopes from 12" down to 3" and I did not waste a single
penny or farthing by going for
GOTO! The non-GOTO scopes are all in the closet.
Just my humble opinions.
George

"Duke" wrote in message
. ..

"Roger Hamlett" wrote in message
...

Normal comments: :-)

1) The scope is good value for money in the UK.
That is probably true, but there are other TAL scopes on the same page
which
are better and just as good a value.
2) The FOV, is not _that_ small.
Well, this scope with the 10mm eyepiece has half a degree FOV. Pretty
hard
for a newbie to find a faint fuzzy.
Just below the Tal 100r there are two better choices in my book.
The StarTravel-80 and the StarTravel-102. These will have about 3 times
the
FOV (estimated), give a brighter view and
be easier to handle as a manual scope. The 80mm is cheaper at 179 pounds
and the 102 a little more expensive
at 259 pounds. Oh, and they come with a barlow if you want that narrower
FOV.
3) Goto, can be a waste of money better spent on optics.
I have seven GOTO scopes from 12" down to 3" and I did not waste a single
penny or farthing by going for
GOTO! The non-GOTO scopes are all in the closet.
Just my humble opinions.
George
If you don't mind the extra cost, Goto is fine. If you have both, then I
suspect most people would pick up the goto unit each time (though I have to
say that while my main 'goto' scope is taking images, I spend a lot of time
behind a pair of binoculars by choice). The eyepiece doen't really come into
the calculation (given that for about £25, a 26mm or similar eypiece can be
added). In fact two of the sites I looked at for this scope, supply a 25mm
as well, for not much more money.
I agree there are other scopes I'd choose, but maybe not the Goto models,
unless the poster has bad light pollution. However a tracking motor at the
least, is very important.

Best Wishes