What should I look for in a first telescope for a child?

Question

I'm in a situation that I think many parents find themselves: my son has said that for Christmas he wants "a telescope so that I can see the planets". Which is cool, and I certainly would like to encourage him on this path. But what should I get? Considering that:

• It should be good enough so that the whole endeavour is fun and not an exercise in frustration;
• But it should also not be terribly expensive, since there's a good chance he will lose interest anyway.

So... what should I look for in order to strike a balance between these two competing requirements?

P.S. I know that product recommendations are off-topic, and available products vary anyway between regions, so I'd be more interested in what features and parameters to look at; perhaps good/bad brands, but no more specific than that. I think at this level it would be on-topic for this site.

Answer 1

A desire to see “the planets” is admirable but not realistic. An affordable back yard telescope will turn planets into shaky white blobs, not Hubble images. The resulting disappointment acts as an incentive for more magnification… which produces bigger, shakier white blobs.

I’m a big believer in binoculars for introductory astronomy viewing. The magnification is great for our Moon, and high enough to see Jupiter’s moons. The field of view is generous which makes spotting objects easy. Aiming is nimble enough to catch the space station as it whizzes by.

A significant advantage of binoculars for beginner observers is the upright image. All astronomical telescope images are upside down... or upside down and backwards... which takes some getting used to.

I bought my daughter a tripod for her binoculars. But she usually just lays on her back in the grass with the binos.

My astronomy club has a 14” Celestron in a full-on observatory, but I spend most of my observing time outside the observatory with my 15X70 binoculars. And the Binos were the only optics I took to the solar eclipse.

A downside of binoculars is sore arms from holding them. A tripod is a poor solution because it must be higher than your eyes. I use a monopod which started life as a telescoping paint roller handle.

Answer 2

What to buy?

Telescopes can only be as good as their mount, and good mounts are expensive.

Dobsonian telescopes are a good choice for beginners, because they are really easy to use, they are affordable and very stable. They are reflectors, so they are basically a large tube full of air with a mirror at the bottom. For a given aperture (=diameter), they will be much cheaper than refractors, which can be very sharp but are also expensive because they contain many lenses.

They are great for kids, who are able to point the telescope to the Moon or bright planets on their own.

What are your alternatives?

For 80€, you probably won't find anything good enough for an enjoyable experience. You'll either have to:

• be lucky and find a good, used telescope for ~100€. Beware, ebay will also be full of cheap, frustrating telescopes.
• Build your own telescope. John Dobson developed the portable, low-cost Newtonian reflector telescope specifically to enable people to build their own. It takes a long time, but it could be a great experience for the whole family.
• be ready to pay more than 80€, and buy a good telescope, once and for all. I've bought my first 4.5inch (114mm) Dobsonian many years ago, and still use it regularly even though I have larger ones at home. It's very portable yet large enough to see many interesting things. It's the telescope in the middle, on the above picture.
• Don't buy anything yet, and try to find someone interested in astronomy in your neighborhood. Ask them if you can watch the sky together, or if you can borrow one telescope for a while. Amateur astronomers tend to have N+1 telescopes.

What to watch?

There are many things in the sky which are interesting to watch when you know a bit about them. But if you're honest, they mostly just look like a light grey blob in front of a dark grey background, and probably won't impress your son.

There are a few crowd-pleasers, though:

• The Moon, especially when partially lit. The craters along the terminator have incredible details. If you look at the right time, you might even see a wall!
• Jupiter, with the 4 Galilean moons, especially when there's a solar eclipse on Jupiter, and you can see the shadow of one moon on Jupiter. They were the first objects found which clearly didn't orbit the Earth.
• Saturn looks stunning. The rings are magnificent, and I've never met anybody not impressed by Saturn's beauty in a telescope. With a 4.5inch Dobsonian, you can see the Cassini division on the rings.
• The Double Cluster, especially with dark skies.
• The Orion Nebula, which can be surprisingly colorful and detailed.
• The Andromeda Galaxy, whose light traveled 2.5 million years to reach your eyes.
• With some practice, you can watch the ISS through the telescope, and see many details.

Answer 3

tl:dr: to ensure a positive result, have an observing plan and some background information before the first observing session to avoid disappointment!

If one looks for those beautiful planet images one will be disappointed. But if one is looking for many different interesting things because one knows ahead of time what to look for, it will be much more fun!

A low quality telescope will be disappointing compared to a good quality one; a used good quality telescope might end up a much better deal than a new low quality one of the same price, but buy from an owner who can show you how to set it up. Look for an astronomy club if possible, they don't need to be necessarily local, but having an experienced observer give you some coaching or help you find a new or used scope in your price range could really help.

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@Woody's answer is very helpful, it's a good idea to manage expectations.

Worst case scenario is that you spend some money and time getting a great telescope, your child takes a few looks, sees a fuzzy, dancing blob of light, says "oh", runs back inside to some instantly-gratifying electronic device and that's the end of it, except you just put all that time and money into buying that great telescope...

I'd encourage you to manage expectations and (potentially) make the experience a lot more fun/rewarding by doing some reading or watching videos about amateur observing.

In addition to the planets, there are other potentially more beautiful things to look for!

As we are coming into winter soon and you are in the Northern hemisphere, why not learn a few constellations too. Orion is a big favorite because it is easy to recognize with those three stars that make up the belt, and the "sword" contains the great Orion nebula which will already look good in binoculars and really could benefit from the higher magnification of a telescope if you decide to go that way.

Betelgeuse, the bright orange star (yes, some stars have obvious color!) that makes up one corner of the big rectangle that is Orion has been in the news a lot lately, you could read about that so that it has some context.

Then there are the beautiful Pleiades that can be found by extending a line along the three stars of the belt. Learning/reading a little bit about them may also make finding them and looking at them more interesting.

The Big Dipper is another favorite, and the stellar system of Mizar and Alcor can be resolved with even a small pair of binoculars. What's exciting to learn here is that each of those is also a double start; there are four stars doing an elaborate dance together!

In fact, many and perhaps most stars are part of multiple star systems, and our singleton Sun is a little bit unusual that it has no companion!

For Jupiter, what's more fun than the blob itself is the four Galilean moons that dance around it. These are easy to see in binoculars and every night they will be in noticeably different positions!

You can find their positions online first if you like, or what may be more fun is to try to sketch their positions; draw a circle for Jupiter and use it to estimate how far the "little stars" are from it. They will all pretty much fall on one like through the Jupiter's equator, which helps distinguish them from stars.

To get an idea where things will be and to plan your evening I recommend either the website in-the-sky.org which has news, observing suggestions and a planetarium mode (it will get your general location and time zone from your internet connection, but as shown in the screenshot below you can also reset it to wherever you like.)

The other, even more fun way would be to download some free planetarium software. I notice that Stellarium seems to be mentioned frequently in this site and used to answer many questions here for example.

If the telescope or binoculars are meant to be a surprise, then trips to a library to read about Astronomy or viewing videos on Youtube together ahead of time may not be possible, but you can certainly plan ahead and have some of those at least ready.

For more options on apps and website etc. have a look at the answer to Where can I find the positions of the planets, stars, moons, artificial satellites, etc. and visualize them?

You can also search right here in Astronomy SE for information or ask questions, and if the first observing sessions generate questions you can also consider posting them here, e.g. "what did we see?" or "why couldn't we see...?"

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I've chosen Riga as the location and 25-Dec-2021 22:00 EET as the date and time. I then typed "Pleiades" in the Find box to make them easier to see.

Christmas night 2021 in Latvia, 10 PM local time:

Answer 4

First of all, some caveats. Telescopes and accessories seem to be particularly affected by current supply chain issues. The used market can be better, but finding what you're looking for on short notice is always difficult. And your parameter of "not terribly expensive" is a bit unclear in a hobby where some amateurs spend more on their telescopes than their cars.

You've already received the "standard answer" of a small Dobsonian. My opinion about this is a bit heterodox. The problem I have with Dobs is that seeing details on planets requires high magnification, around 100x or more. Inexpensive Dobs (which is the main appeal of the design) do not track objects as the Earth turns. This means that at high magnification, you can only observe for a few seconds before you have to move the scope again. This can be frustrating, especially since the movement of small, cheap Dobs is not as fluid as their larger cousins. My second telescope was a 6" f/8 Dob. It was optically excellent, but I sold it because I was frustrated by trying to use it at high magnification. Additionally, all Newtonian telescopes require periodic collimation. If the recipient is not the kind of person who's inclined to fix or adjust things, but expects them to just work out of the box, a Newtonian is not a good choice.

If I were gifting a used telescope to a beginner who's specifically interested in planets, my first choice would be a 60mm-ish f/15 (preferred) or f/11ish refractor, ideally 1980s or earlier Japanese manufacture, with a 0.965-to-1.25 hybrid diagonal, one of the decent but inexpensive 9mm eyepieces sold by Svbony and other Chinese brands, and a 25mm Plossl for wider views. The showpiece planets (Jupiter and Saturn) are within the reach of a scope like this. Jupiter and Saturn are currently setting not long after the sun, but still visible around a kid's bedtime.

My next choice, or maybe first if the recipient is mechanically inclined, would be a 114mm f/9ish Newtonian with the same eyepieces, no diagonal needed. This telescope is capable of excellent views of planets. A Cheshire eyepiece or collimation cap would be a welcome accessory.

I'd recommend an equatorial mount for either. EQ mounts are often criticized for being a bit more complicated to set up. Basically, one of the axes of the mount should be pointed at the celestial pole, i.e., the North Star if you're in the northern hemisphere. But don't be put off by the precision required to align a mount for astrophotography. I've found that eyeballing it is adequate for visual observation. And yes, cheap EQ mounts are flimsy and frustrating in their own way. But as a beginner, I accepted this weakness as worth it for the ability to track objects by turning a single knob.

Answer 5

We usually don't post two answers to a question but occasionally some do when the answers are getting long and are somewhat unrelated.

There are two "starter" telescopes that are pretty common and I was lucky enough to own both at different times in my childhood.

• 4.25 inch or 108 mm diameter f/10 Newtonian reflector (Edmund Scientific)
• 2.4 inch or 61 mm diameter f/15 refractor (Unitron)

Both were on equatorial mounts which is helpful when you are holding a star chart and want to move from point A to point B following the right ascension and declination axes of the chart, and as the object moves across the field (due to Earth's continuous rotation) you know you only need to nudge the RA axis to bring it back to the center of the field.

My Newtonian Reflector: had a very solid and very heavy cast-iron base. The axes moved fairly smoothly but there were no slow motion knobs to turn "just a little bit". You had to loosen the lock screw and just push on the telescope. That was okay once you got good at it, but it's suboptimal.

But the advantages of the Newtonian was that the eyepiece mount was close to the tube which was pretty heavy, so if I attached something like a camera (astrophotography is FUN!) it didn't affect the balance much and wasn't wobbly. I found having my head near the top of the scope (which sat low) was somehow convenient and never needed a right angle prism to make viewing possible like was usually necessary for the refractor. And of course four times the light gathering!

My Refractor: had a beautiful, high quality equatorial mount with fine motion controls for both right ascension and declination and very gentle shaft locks, and a fine adjustment for aligning the polar axis toward the pole, basically there was altitude and azimuth for aligning and then the full equatorial mount on top of that.

It was also much lighter and more portable than the 1970's cast-iron mount reflector; it came in three hand-crafted wooden boxes (scope + eyepieces, mount, folding legs).

If you want to look high in the sky with a refractor (or binoculars) you have to either assume a weird position (like laying in the grass) or if you use a refractor, use a right angle prism so the eyepiece can point up, then bend over or sit down to look into it. For observers of low height maybe standing is fine.

It was also more of a challenge to mount a heavy camera on the end of my long skinny refractor's focusing tube, but these days cameras are a lot lighter.

When telescopes are taken care of reasonably, they can remain in excellent condition for decades, so I recommend checking for a used scope to see if you can locate one and discuss with the owner and ideally give it a try.

For new scopes there are so many options these days but the quality can vary dramatically, some can be pretty bad. Either way if possible find an Astronomy club you can contact and ask for help if possible.

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From https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/163333-425-f10-edmund-telescope/

The "business end" looking into the scope we see the diagonal mirror that sits in the middle and reflects light sideways to the eyepiece, and the objective mirror way down at the bottom of the tube:

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From http://www.company7.com/library/unitron/unitron_114.html

This is an alt-az mount shown here, mine had the much nicer equatorial mount

Here are some slightly larger ones with the good mounts, from here: http://www.company7.com/library/unitron/unitron_132-152.html

The "business end":

Answer 6

FWIW, my telescope I'm pretty sure is a celestron powerseeker 114az, which was slightly more than $100 iirc when I bought it. I normally spend about an hour (or more) with it making painstakingly fine adjustments to it, to have the payoff of seeing a planet or two for about 2 minutes cumulatively. It's very hard to keep the telescope from vibrating the object out of frame, since the altitude control isn't rock solid and the stand isn't the most stable. I still enjoy using it since I'm a patient person, but I doubt that'll suffice for your kid.

I would say you'd want to prioritize stability over the largest magnification. It's very frustrating to finally get an object in view, only to have it wiggled away before the next person can see. As a bonus of lower magnification, this gives you a broader range of error for getting an object in view and keeping it there.

I've only used altitude-azimuth telescopes, so I can't comment on whether equatorial mounts are generally more stable. That'd be worth reading up on.

As other answers mentioned, binoculars are sometimes easier to use. They have the bonus that most of the centering of objects is naturally done by your body, whereas many telescopes having inverted controls (i.e. moving the scope right makes an object go left in the view, and moving up makes the object go down), which is very unnatural.