Christmas telescopes

Saw some doting grandparents buying a primitive Tasco scope for the
grandchild today. They were really excited, and spent a lot of time looking
at the box. And an impressive box it was too. Courtesy of Hubble, I imagine.
And I thought about the thousands? of kids who would get one of these under
the tree, would take a quick look at the moon and see something nowhere near
as exciting as a hundred views they had seen on TV or as glossy photographs
somewhere. Then a look at the stars. Pinpoints of light exactly as they see
without the scope, but more of them and not so bright. Where are the
nebulae? Where is the colour?
And the beginning of an antipathy towards anything to do with astronomy that
will last for years.

T.T. wrote:
Saw some doting grandparents buying a primitive Tasco scope for the
grandchild today. They were really excited, and spent a lot of time looking
at the box. And an impressive box it was too. Courtesy of Hubble, I imagine.
And I thought about the thousands? of kids who would get one of these under
the tree, would take a quick look at the moon and see something nowhere near
as exciting as a hundred views they had seen on TV or as glossy photographs
somewhere. Then a look at the stars. Pinpoints of light exactly as they see
without the scope, but more of them and not so bright. Where are the
nebulae? Where is the colour?
And the beginning of an antipathy towards anything to do with astronomy that
will last for years.


Did you intervene and educate?

Shawn

"Shawn" sdotherecurry@bresnannextdotnet wrote in message ...
T.T. wrote:
snip

Did you intervene and educate?

You took the keystrokes right out of my hands.

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"T.T." wrote in message
...
Saw some doting grandparents buying a primitive Tasco scope for the
grandchild today. They were really excited, and spent a lot of time
looking at the box. And an impressive box it was too. Courtesy of Hubble,
I imagine.
And I thought about the thousands? of kids who would get one of these
under the tree, would take a quick look at the moon and see something
nowhere near as exciting as a hundred views they had seen on TV or as
glossy photographs somewhere. Then a look at the stars. Pinpoints of light
exactly as they see without the scope, but more of them and not so bright.
Where are the nebulae? Where is the colour?
And the beginning of an antipathy towards anything to do with astronomy
that will last for years.

Destined to the closet. Maybe 10% will have the brains to see beyond.

"T.T." writes:

And I thought about the thousands? of kids who would get one of these under
the tree, would take a quick look at the moon and see something nowhere near
as exciting as a hundred views they had seen on TV or as glossy photographs
somewhere.

A look at the moon through ANY telescope is much more exciting that TV or
glossy pictures, IMHO.

And the beginning of an antipathy towards anything to do with astronomy that
will last for years.

I'm not so sure. Most of us started out with a cheap telescope. I
think the reason for youngsters not being interested in astronomy (or
other sciences) is to be found elsewhere.

pej
--
Per Erik Jorde

T.T. wrote:
Saw some doting grandparents buying a primitive Tasco scope for the
grandchild today. They were really excited, and spent a lot of time looking
at the box. And an impressive box it was too. Courtesy of Hubble, I imagine.
And I thought about the thousands? of kids who would get one of these under
the tree, would take a quick look at the moon and see something nowhere near
as exciting as a hundred views they had seen on TV or as glossy photographs
somewhere. Then a look at the stars. Pinpoints of light exactly as they see
without the scope, but more of them and not so bright. Where are the
nebulae? Where is the colour?
And the beginning of an antipathy towards anything to do with astronomy that
will last for years.

Probably not antipathy. These little scopes generally have one of three
effects in my experience:

1. "Saw the Moon. Saw a bright star. Cool. That's enough. Where's the
XBox 360?" (This is the usual scenario. 30 years ago it was pretty much
the same. Just substitute "8-Track Player" for "XBox" ;-)). Oh, and
I've been to enough public star parties to tell you that even the
youngest or most blase' kids find the experience of looking through a
real telescope "live," even a poor one, at the Moon to be much more
pleasant than looking at a picture on a cardboard box--or even on TV.

2. "This is great. What else can I see? What would a larger scope show
me?" Happens occasionally. That's where many of us came from. I myself
went this route, starting with a 3 inch Tasco reflector that was
probably worse than most of what's at WallyWorld now.

3. "Years ago, I got a wondeful little telescope for Christmas. It was
a lot of fun. I wonder what happened to it? I wonder what I could see
through a telescope now?" I find quite a few middle-aged people
entering/reentering the hobby with VERY fond memories of a long-lost
Christmas Scope.

The above is not meant to excuse poor quality Department Store
Telescopes (though, in general, their quality seems to have come up
some since the 70s - 80s, but just to point out that in my experience
the scopes' quality (or lack of it) is generally not a factor. In most
cases, they'll only be called upon to show Moon craters and a bright
star or two, and most of them are capable of fulfilling those
functions.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
http://skywatch.brainiac.com/astroland/index.htm

Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sct-user

See: http://journals.aol.com/rmollise/UncleRodsAstroBlog/
For Uncle Rod's Astro Blog.

The above is not meant to excuse poor quality Department Store
Telescopes (though, in general, their quality seems to have come up
some since the 70s - 80s, but just to point out that in my experience
the scopes' quality (or lack of it) is generally not a factor. In most
cases, they'll only be called upon to show Moon craters and a bright
star or two, and most of them are capable of fulfilling those
functions.



Whats your take on the 4.5" Tasco luminova? It comes with cheap Huygens
EP's and a plastic 3x's barlow but it is only about $150. I think any kid
who has
an expressed interest in astronomy could do lots with it. The only problem
is
buying some cheap plossls rather than taking those huygens EP's seriously.

"RMOLLISE" wrote in message
oups.com...

I myself
starting with a 3 inch Tasco reflector that was

As did I....
But that small reflector showed me Jupiter one
-15F night back in 1969 I still remember the
views like they were yesterday..................
(remember the -15F cold too !!!!)


Fast foreword, my friend just bought a 4.5" newt for
$10 or so at a yard sale, brand new, and with high hopes.
He learned quickly. (used to looking through my C 8, C 11
already) Sooooooo. out of nostalgia's sake, I am
going to get it from him. Just looking at it makes me feel
like a kid again.



AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net/

"AM" wrote in message
...



"RMOLLISE" wrote in message
oups.com...

I myself
starting with a 3 inch Tasco reflector that was

As did I....
But that small reflector showed me Jupiter one
-15F night back in 1969 I still remember the
views like they were yesterday..................
(remember the -15F cold too !!!!)


Fast foreword, my friend just bought a 4.5" newt for
$10 or so at a yard sale, brand new, and with high hopes.
He learned quickly. (used to looking through my C 8, C 11
already) Sooooooo. out of nostalgia's sake, I am
going to get it from him. Just looking at it makes me feel
like a kid again.


My first telecope (25 years ago) had an eyeglass lens for an objective, a
paper towel roll for a tube, and some plastic camera lens for an eyepiece.
Terrible thing. Still, it showed the moons of Jupiter and the disk of Saturn
(rings were edge on at the time). I was on cloud nine. Within a couple of
years, I built my first Newtonian (8 inch).

Rockett Crawford

B A Loney wrote:

Whats your take on the 4.5" Tasco luminova? It comes with cheap Huygens
EP's and a plastic 3x's barlow but it is only about $150. I think any kid
who has
an expressed interest in astronomy could do lots with it. The only problem
is
buying some cheap plossls rather than taking those huygens EP's seriously.

Hi:

Especially these days, you have to look at every one of these scopes
individually, as the importers change sources regularly and the quality
of the scopes can very wildly year to year or even month to
month...this goes for 'em all...TASCO, Meade, Konus (now big in U.S.
Wal-Marts) and the rest. The 4.5 inch reflectors I've seen of late have
acceptable optics (spherical mirrors at focal lengths just long enough
to be semi OK). It's usually the mounts that are the sore point. The
cheapest of the breed have mounts with enough backlash (maybe "flop" is
a better word) that it's hard to center the Moon. Certainly it is
possible to get one good enough to get someone started. And, certainly,
replacing the eyepieces with Chinese plossls will help even more (at
least most of the WallyWorlders now have 1.25 inch focusers).

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
http://skywatch.brainiac.com/astroland/index.htm

Like SCTs and MCTs?
Check-out sct-user, the mailing list for CAT fanciers:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sct-user

See: http://journals.aol.com/rmollise/UncleRodsAstroBlog/
For Uncle Rod's Astro Blog.