I gave away my old telescope a couple of years ago. I hadn't touched it in years, so I gave it to my boss's sister in exchange for the best batch of afghan biscuits I've ever eaten. The telescope being heavy, difficult to train on parts astronomical, and otherwise clapped out, I think I got the better end of the bargain.
That's until I bought a house with a flat backyard in an area without hills and a bit further away from the city lights. Suddenly the night sky became more prominent, and the urge to have a look at things closer up returned.
As luck would have it, Woolworths are selling $100 4-inch reflectors at the moment. This is the same spec as the my old scope, though it cost my parents $700 second hand in 1987 (ouch!).
As is only just, you get what you pay for in a $100 telescope. The lightness of the scope means it shakes a lot in the wind (causing Mars to spin around wildly), and the precision is a bit off, so there's a bit of chromatic aberration in what you see, but I'm just impressed that I can see that much.
Naturally I took it for a spin and checked out the Pleiades and the GREAT NEBULA IN ORION (cue mellotron choirs). Now it's true that you can't see things out of a $100 telescope as nicely as you can in the Hubble Space Telescope. But there is value in actually going out and looking at things yourself. Without wanting to sound like a hippie, there's a kind of connection you get when looking at astronomical objects through a telescope, that you don't get looking at wildly colorised pictures in a book. Admittedly, there's also something you get looking at wildly colorised pictures that you don't get looking at a telescope. You get to sleep for one thing, and you get to stay warm. Nonetheless, for $100, you can hardly go wrong.
I really must organise a STAR PARTY some time. [Cavernous nerd/seal laugh]
Posted by stuart at January 15, 2006 2:58 PM