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Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

Family, children, advice, schooling, finance for children, all things kids.
AsleepInYorkshire
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Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405613

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » April 20th, 2021, 2:58 pm

My 13 year old daughter is studying astronomy from next year. She has a general interest in space. Nothing Einstein like just likes to understand stuff.

We have been thinking about buying her a telescope. But I'm not sure if it would live up to my expectations.

Does anyone know much about these sort of things please?

Can they be used from her bedroom window (south facing) or does she have to set it up in the middle of Dartmoor?
Is it worth buying something for (say) £2K or is that just a silly amount for the use she will get from it?

What can you expect to see from a telescope? If I looked at Mars would I just see a red dot? Noting that depends on the magnification and the budget I suppose.

Thanks for any pointers, help in advance

AiY

Lootman
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405616

Postby Lootman » April 20th, 2021, 3:13 pm

This article is a good starting point:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-e ... telescope/

I personally would not spend £2,000 on a 13 year old with a very recent interest in the topic. On the other hand a cheap scope will soon prove inadequate and frustrating if her interest becomes serious.

The mount for a telescope is just as important as with any degree of magnification, the equipment will shake.

Results will not be good poking it out of a bedroom window, partly because of light pollution in urban areas and partly because the temperature difference between inside and outside sets up air movements which distort the image. Better to set it up in your back garden, at least. It is a sad fact of star gazing that the best times to do it are when it is very cold outside.

Ideally your scope would be portable so you can take it to more remote locations with better visibility. But the better scopes are heavy so that is a problem. A Catadioptric scope combines power and portability better than most.

I would probably start with a simple refractor of 75-100 mm aperture. Prices have come way down now they are all made in China. You will be able to see craters on the moon, the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Stars will just be points of light no matter how much you magnify them, but nebulae and star clusters should look good.

Aperture is much more important than magnification. In some ways a good pair of binoculars is better than a cheap scope.

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405620

Postby EssDeeAitch » April 20th, 2021, 3:24 pm

I bought a Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ Telescope - https://www.celestron.com/products/powe ... -telescope on Gumtree for £95 and sold it two months later for £100. The reason for selling was the degree of difficulty in focusing the telescope, the complexity of swapping and focusing ancillary lenses, the inability to see anything of note other than the moon (Saturn was just a fuzzy blob, not exactly exciting) and the cumbersome nature of the equipment which made transporting it difficult.

My recommendation would be to avoid a telescope but if you feel that you do need to buy one, buy a second hand unit. Perhaps even better, buy a pair of binoculars. The link below discusses the pros and cons of doing so.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advi ... s-a-guide/

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405645

Postby Loup321 » April 20th, 2021, 5:22 pm

I bought my 9 year old daughter the National Geographic tabletop telescope for about £60 for Christmas. We live in the suburbs of London, but in our back garden and even walking along the road with streetlights, we see many stars with the naked eye (we are near the top of a hill, in an area of semis with wide roads, so the density of light is possible lower than some areas). With the telescope, I haven't managed to focus on any stars yet, and the thing I thought might have been a planet was also impossible to focus on. But we did see the moon one night, with all the craters. We even saw it moving across the viewing aperture as the earth turned, which particularly impressed me. I have never actually seen the earth turning, and that evening we did.

We've only been out a couple of times, because you need the right temperature for me to consider it worth going out and the right level of darkness. Evenings are too light at the moment, until just before bedtime. But winter was too cold. I am a Very Bad Mother for buying stuff that requires too much of my input and then not giving up the time to do anything about it!

When I was looking for telescopes, I saw an opinion that stars are just tiny pinpricks of light, no matter what you get, but you should be able to get a decent image of the planets and moon with a cheap telescope or even binoculars. So don't have expectations too high. Focusing the NG one we bought is quite difficult (I've not let the small one loose on it herself, yet), and on our garden table, you really have to bend quite low or kneel on the lawn to get a good angle. See earlier comments, and add in damp grass as an issue. But altogether, I'm happy with it (when I have time to use it).

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405648

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » April 20th, 2021, 5:41 pm

Snorvey wrote:Point of note here (which probably won't apply to your daughter).

A few years ago, my missus bought me a telescope for Christmas one year and I used it once to look at the stars from the spare room (I saw f-all other than the moon btw). I stopped using it because the woman across the way came to her window and drew the curtains. I wasn't looking at her or even in the direction of her house (honest!) and I don't think she saw me, but there are HUGE risks (to my mind at least) of urban telescoping for yer average bloke in the street (or his spare bedroom for that matter).

Fortunately, or otherwise, depending on one's point of view (pun intended), the back bedrooms face nothing. We have open field to the back and nothing will ever be built there as it's zoned for a lake and timber holiday chalets. We do have the glow of lights from Ull which is in the distance. I'd be quite happy to go up to the local common, all 400 acres of it but I suspect my daughter would not want to spend too long in the cold.

AiY

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405695

Postby XFool » April 20th, 2021, 10:16 pm

...My immediate reaction is to consider the environmnt where you live. If for instance in London, I'd try to encourage her to take up another interest. :(

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405697

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » April 20th, 2021, 10:23 pm

XFool wrote:...My immediate reaction is to consider the environmnt where you live. If for instance in London, I'd try to encourage her to take up another interest. :(

Yes I agree. We live in a market town in Yorkshire.

Thank you all for finding the time to help. Greatly appreciated.

I want to give my daughter the opportunity to experience stuff and not have to become obsessed with it. She has a broad spectrum of interests and doesn't gravitate to one thing in particular. The comments and advice in the thread have been very useful and I am genuinely grateful. Thank you

AiY

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405701

Postby Lootman » April 20th, 2021, 10:35 pm

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:
XFool wrote:...My immediate reaction is to consider the environmnt where you live. If for instance in London, I'd try to encourage her to take up another interest. :(

Yes I agree. We live in a market town in Yorkshire.

Thank you all for finding the time to help. Greatly appreciated.

I want to give my daughter the opportunity to experience stuff and not have to become obsessed with it. She has a broad spectrum of interests and doesn't gravitate to one thing in particular. The comments and advice in the thread have been very useful and I am genuinely grateful. Thank you

The other idea is to check for a local astronomy society. When I was about the same age as your daughter one of my neighbours would take me to events such as talks, slide shows of views through powerful telescopes, visits to a planetarium and so forth.

A trip to London could include a trip to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and, closer to you, is the National Space Centre in Leicester.

There are a lot of interesting things that can be done without freezing your extremities on a hill in the middle of the night in January.

The stuff I learned back at that age is still with me. I have visited the Mount Palomar observatory in California, the Very Large Array in New Mexico and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Pluto was discovered.

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405799

Postby murraypaul » April 21st, 2021, 10:50 am

Some thoughts:
a) I'd suggest there is no need to pay anywhere near that amount of money. Maybe 10-20% of that figure.
b) Check if you have a local astronomy society, they should have a variety of different equipment you could try out. (Although probably not at the moment.)
c) From what you've said it sounds like you are in a good location for observation, and just taking something out into the garden should be fine.
d) There are broadly two types of telescopes, refractors and reflectors.
i)
Refractors are what you probably think of when you hear the word telescope. A long thin tube on a tripod where you look in one end and see out of the other.
Generally refractors are better for magnification, so things like viewing craters on the moon.
A refractor on a bad tripod will be very frustrating, as it will wobble around too much to actually be able to see anything. Don't skimp on the tripod.
Refractors are much smaller and lighter, so easier to transport around if you are leaving the house to observe.

ii)
Large reflectors are much wider tubes that sit on the ground in their own mounts. You look in the side.
There are also smaller reflectors that also mount on a tripod, and table-top versions.
Reflectors are generally better at collecting more light at less magnification, so you can see dimmer stars, nebulae and so on.
Reflectors are much more stable on their bases than refractors, and the telescope and (non-tripod) bases are a much simpler design, so you end up spending proportionally more on the functional bits of the telescope and less on the mountings.

As with any device, the best one is the one you (or your daughter) would actually use.
So I'd suggest smaller and lighter rather than bigger and heavier, that way you/she can just take it outside whenever she wants.
(I don't have kids, so I've no idea how much weight a 13 year old could carry :oops: The telescope I link below is about 6kg.)
And I'd suggest a refractor with base mount rather than a tripod, as they are easier to setup and less prone to wobbling.
Normally I'd suggest going to some shops, or even better finding an exhibition to go to, but not really an option at the moment.
In a similar situation I think I would consider something like this, a smaller table-top refractor: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/revi ... dobsonian/
This should be a reasonable balance of good enough to enjoy using, without being too expensive if it turns out not to be her thing.

f) If your daughter is also into gadgets, for both types of telescopes you can pay more to get computerized mounts, where you can have a phone app linked to the telescope, select what you want to view on the app and have the telescope automatically track to that point in the sky. For astro-photography you can also get mounts that automatically adjust for the rotation of the earth, so you can mount a camera instead of a viewing lens and take long-exposure photographs.

g) Also consider a good pair of binoculars as a cheaper introduction.
While not as good as refractors for magnification or reflectors for light collection, they are easy to carry around and use.
Avoid going for ones with too much magnification or too large objective lenses, they won't be useable without a tripod, especially if this is for someone younger, who might not have as much arm strength.
A sun-lounger is actually quite a good tool for binocular observation, it is earlier on the arms and neck to lie down with your neck supported and look almost straight up.
A reasonable pair of 10x50 binoculars would be good enough to start with, and also useful for other things as well.
For a pricer option you can go for image-stabilized versions, which tend to have smaller lenses, so collect less light, but make up for it by automatically stabilizing the image while you hold them, allowing you to actually see dimmer things that you would otherwise. They also work as excellent bird-watching binoculars. (I have a pair of Canon 10x30 IS binoculars, I really like them, but they are pricy.)

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405827

Postby CliffEdge » April 21st, 2021, 1:04 pm

murraypaul wrote:In a similar situation I think I would consider something like this, a smaller table-top refractor: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/revi ... dobsonian/


Isn't that a reflector (mirror)? Looks very good to me.

murraypaul
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405832

Postby murraypaul » April 21st, 2021, 1:16 pm

CliffEdge wrote:
murraypaul wrote:In a similar situation I think I would consider something like this, a smaller table-top refractor: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/revi ... dobsonian/


Isn't that a reflector (mirror)? Looks very good to me.


Bah, the words are just too similar!
I kept having to go back and edit my post, looks like I missed one, thanks.
Yes, a small table-top mount reflector is what I would recommend.

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405904

Postby Sobraon » April 21st, 2021, 6:35 pm

Although my kids and us enjoyed laying on the grass 'real time' observing the Perseid meteors in August when they were younger I wonder if you have considered remote observation?

Seems to be several services allowing the remote control and observation using expensive bits of kit for example and Observing with NASA looks interesting, see here.

Given that school starts to get a bit serious in year 10 and beyond and you will blink and she will be off to university (seriously) if it were me I would use the £2000 to go to Florida this summer and spend a couple of days at Cape Kennedy ( other attractions are available).

PhaseThree

Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405928

Postby PhaseThree » April 21st, 2021, 7:40 pm

Please take note of the advice above concerning Tripods. It is impossible to see anything clearly if the telescope is wobbling around. Bigger telescopes need better mounts to support their weight.

However

I like and use binoculars in preference to telescopes. In fact my vote for beginners of any age, and particularly for those of this age is for a decent set of binoculars.

Personally I use an ageing set of Meade 9x63 on an overkill tripod/scaffolding support (Benbo 2). If I was buying again I would still buy binoculars but would go for something with higher magnification, but only because I have the tripod to support them.
If you want light weight and you have the money then consider some image stabilised binoculars.

Take a look at these
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advi ... astronomy/

PhaseThree

Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405932

Postby PhaseThree » April 21st, 2021, 8:05 pm

PhaseThree wrote:Please take note of the advice above concerning Tripods. It is impossible to see anything clearly if the telescope is wobbling around. Bigger telescopes need better mounts to support their weight.

However

I like and use binoculars in preference to telescopes. In fact my vote for beginners of any age, and particularly for those of this age is for a decent set of binoculars.

Personally I use an ageing set of Meade 9x63 on an overkill tripod/scaffolding support (Benbo 2). If I was buying again I would still buy binoculars but would go for something with higher magnification, but only because I have the tripod to support them.
If you want light weight and you have the money then consider some image stabilised binoculars.

Take a look at these
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advi ... astronomy/


Should probably have mentioned - Binoculars are a good buy for when your daughter looses interest in stars and gets interested in wildlife, bird spotting with a reflecting telescope is ..... ambitious.

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#405956

Postby Lootman » April 21st, 2021, 8:55 pm

Impressed with all the people here with equipment and experience. If anyone is interested, this is my kit:

Explore Scientific AR152 refractor:

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/ac ... 14152.html

Celestron 200 mm Schmidt-Cassegrain:

https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/ac ... l#SID=1668

Mount:

https://telescopes.net/explore-scientif ... nsion.html

Hilkinson 10 by 50 binoculars:

https://www.vikingopticalcentres.co.uk/ ... e-ex-demo/

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#406073

Postby Bubblesofearth » April 22nd, 2021, 10:42 am

PhaseThree wrote:
Should probably have mentioned - Binoculars are a good buy for when your daughter looses interest in stars and gets interested in wildlife, bird spotting with a reflecting telescope is ..... ambitious.


An alternative, with similar thinking, would be a spotter scope. I've an 80mm Opticron scope plus good sturdy tripod (very important!) and use it for both astronomy and bird watching. It wasn't particularly cheap but good optics aren't. I think I paid around £800 some years back for scope plus tripod. I've two lenses, one gives 40x mag and the other 60x. TBH I only really use the 40x lens which is good enough to see the main bands on Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and the crescent phases of Venus*. On a dark night I've also managed to pick out Uranus (stop it at the back!) as a small disc.

Hand held Binoculars are hopeless for the planets as they are not really powerful enough and holding them steady enough is an issue. In London although there are far fewer stars visible the moon and planets are still very rewarding objects with a small telescope. They are what drove my interest in astronomy at an early age and with an even smaller telescope - 60mm refractor if memory serves.

*To see these you need to observe in twilight before Venus becomes too bright.

BoE

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#450566

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » October 16th, 2021, 12:11 pm

We've been reviewing options and currently we're coming down on the side of a telescope. Various reasons for this but we seem to feel a telescope is just going to tick a few more boxes.

We know we will have to set it up in the garden. We can probably organise an area which is protected from wind and still be able to see the sky.

Our options currently are

1. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144227520853 ... 1438.l2649

2. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331066146627 ... 1478214476

3. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143672578067 ... SwDLlfJ98I

We've focused on aperture then magnification and then other things in the toolbox which make the telescope more user friendly.

We can't quite see a big difference between item 1 and 3 except price. Are we missing something important between the two which brings about the price difference or is it simply charging more for design?

Thank you

AiY

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#450571

Postby monabri » October 16th, 2021, 12:35 pm

My wife was thinking about getting a telescope but was put off by what could be seen ( or rather, not seen) by a telescope. It might be worth typing the name of the telescope into Google and then looking at "images".

https://www.google.com/search?q=celestr ... 98&bih=518

https://www.google.com/search?q=celestr ... 0HGjTNP4KM

(The outcome was a new digital camera and a desire to get into astrophotography having decided that a telescope would only show up small dots of light and not provide real close ups other than of the moon...for which binoculars were good enough).

https://astrobackyard.com/astrophotography-cameras/


Edit: a camera could also be used for YouTube "vlogging" and er, for taking photos so it could lead to 2 hobbies.

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#450590

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » October 16th, 2021, 2:40 pm

monabri wrote:My wife was thinking about getting a telescope but was put off by what could be seen ( or rather, not seen) by a telescope. It might be worth typing the name of the telescope into Google and then looking at "images".

https://www.google.com/search?q=celestr ... 98&bih=518

https://www.google.com/search?q=celestr ... 0HGjTNP4KM

(The outcome was a new digital camera and a desire to get into astrophotography having decided that a telescope would only show up small dots of light and not provide real close ups other than of the moon...for which binoculars were good enough).

https://astrobackyard.com/astrophotography-cameras/


Edit: a camera could also be used for YouTube "vlogging" and er, for taking photos so it could lead to 2 hobbies.

Thank you for your response. My daughter has a bridge camera. Nothing over the top but more than capable for what she uses it for. We were hoping to use that with a telescope to take pictures of the night sky. It's magnification is 66x. I don't know what the aperture is. The telescopes we're looking at seem to have a much greater magnification. It has software to locate what you can look at (I think). May I ask if your good ladies DSLR has one of the long lenses attached to it by which she gains magnification and aperture please?

Thank you

AiY

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Re: Astronomy - Telescope for Teenager

#450603

Postby monabri » October 16th, 2021, 3:44 pm

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:
May I ask if your good ladies DSLR has one of the long lenses attached to it by which she gains magnification and aperture please?

Thank you

AiY


My wife bought a Canon EOS250D package from John Lewis which came with two lenses...an 18-55mm focal length and a bigger 75-300mm lens. With this camera, they would be classed as "normal" and "medium telefocal" lengths, used for street photography (18-55) and landscape/wildlife/sport (75-300).


For astrophotography, she bought an additional, smaller lens (in terms of physical length)....in fact it was this one

https://digital-photography-school.com/ ... -a-budget/

The article provides a good explanation as to what she is trying to achieve in terms of photos (aperture control)

As you can see , it is not what you thought..it isn't one of those massively long long lenses that you see photographers using at sports matches or "on safari" in Africa....quite the opposite in fact....but see below.

The Samyang 14mm falls into the "wide angle" category when used with the Canon EOS250D - which is a cropped sensor DLSR camera (the same lens might be classed "Ultra Wide angle/almost fish eye" if used with a full frame professional/more expensive camera).

The lens wasn't too expensive when we bought it last year but it seems to have ramped up in price.



Here's a useful table... :o

https://tinytutorials.wordpress.com/201 ... op-factor/

You can see though that the table indicates "telescopes with camera attachment" (text on the top right of the linked item) with super long focal lengths of 600+ (no doubt these would be quite large...and very expensive).

As you can see, a long length lens is actually at the opposite end of the spectrum for her requirement, she's not trying to zoom into the hell holes of Uranus (!). Using long lenses must be a nightmare, requiring a camera mount and shielding from the wind.


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