Astronomy - Getting The Youngsters Started

 Yes Astronomy can seem,"astronomical", in cost, and in the vast knowledge that is needed to excel at it, and in the tons of confusing, and often seemingly conflicting information that is available on the web now. And I do realize advanced astronomers will be bored with some of these basics. Because I know I tend to get bored when reading things I already know, especially when an article at a first glance, seems to offer the information you are looking for. But too often they go on, and on, and on, and they never seem to really get to the point. Or the advertised information just isn't there at all. But I shall try to avoid this "droning on and on syndrome", even in discussing these basics. So, with that, let's jump right in to the "getting started" part.
But before we dive right in, I encourage people to do thier own research, and try to be as extensive as you can. Don't necessarily trust Amazon's reviews, or any other "consumer level" reviews. For instance, I have first hand knowledge that the "# 1 selling" telescope on Amazon is pretty much a pile of junk! Even so, it has hundreds of glowing! reviews. And this is a great mystery to me, But it is also a great illustration of the unreliability of many of the standard reviews.
So, try to get into the amateur astronomy "community", and into blogs, for more accurate information. Because that is where you will find the real and more useful reviews and information, that are based on the knowledge of people who have real experience, and who don't have anything to gain by giving some mediocre product a great review.
Now, firstly, (And I do like those numerical "ly" words! 😁) let's discuss the pitfalls of getting started. And I shall state simply here, that there are mountains of cheap telescopes out there! And they often range from 30 dollars to 130 dollars. But telescopes of dubious quality are not necessarily limited to that lower price range. However, in my opinion, you can't get any kind of quality optics to speak of for under 150 dollars. And even that price is what I consider the "threshold" of decent quality. Because you simply can't get high quality optics for a dirt cheap price, unless you happen to stumble upon some good used equipment at a garage sale, r you know someone who is moving or something like that.
And you won't likely find much in the way of bargains on EBay or other purported "bargain" websites these days either. Because most of those kinds of websites have largely become marketers of cheap imported goods, and are replete with "hawkers", who often are selling over priced merchandise to people who don't have a clue about what they are buying. But they think it must be good deal, because it is on EBay.
Now, I am not saying everything on EBay is bad. I frequently buy things there myself. But I mostly buy accessories, that may be difficult to find elsewhere. And that is where EBay does shine, in that you can find many things there that other people aren't offering for sale. But for the most part, be careful shopping anywhere out there on the web, and do your research.
And be sure to check shipping dates on all of the sites you order from. Because there is nothing more disappointing than ordering something, and forgetting to look at the shipping schedules, only to find out whatever it is coming from somewhere overseas, and it won't be arriving for month or two! But, I am starting to get bogged down here, so let's move on.
Secondly, there are volumes of complex articles that have been written about what kind of telescope to get for that "first scope", for young beginners. But without getting bogged down in all of the technical augments, I am going to be very simple and cut to the point here. Because hands down, a modest refracting telescope is by far, the best choice for most beginners.
And that is simply because refracting telescopes are less complicated, and more durable than reflecting telescopes are. Refracting telescopes do tend to be a bit more costly than basic reflecting type telescopes. But I don't want to get bogged down into the many nuances of "Refactors verses Reflectors". The bottom line is, for a beginners, refracting telescopes are much more durable, and they are easier to use than reflecting scopes tend to be.
And If you don't know the difference between a refracting telescope and reflecting scopes, please Google it! Then be prepared to do some serious reading for a good long while! 😁
Now we do have to go into some technical jargon here, in the matter of the "focal length" of a telescope. But the "focal length" of a telescope is a basic number which, in part, describes the potential power of any given telescope. And most astronomical telescopes fall into a focal length number of between 400 mm's and 1200 mm's. And those numbers are used to indicate the distance between the "Primary lens" for refactors, or the primary mirror for reelecting, telescopes, and where you are looking into the eyepiece to view the Moon, or whatever you are looking at.
If the "Millimeter" or "mm" designation confuses you, below is a link to a page you can use to convert "millimeters to inches".  But an easy "rule of thumb" is, 100 mm's is just a bit under 4 inches. It is 3.93 inches, to be very close to exact. But anyway, here is the link to convert Millimeters to inches.
And the greater the distance from the primary lens to eyepiece, the larger the focal length number will be. And the larger the focal length number is, the more potential "power" your telescope will possess.
And again, I don't want to get too technical here, but there are many "short tube" refactors out there, which are usually billed as "travel scopes", because they are indeed shorter and smaller, and easier to transport and set up, etc. But most of those shorter scopes only have around on average, around a 500mm focal length. And folks, yes, many of us more experienced amateur astronomers well know, "power is over rated". And it can also be wildly exaggerated and very misleading as well. But Kids love power! And I kind of like it myself! So a 400 or 500 mm telescope is simply not going to get you a very close up look at the Moon, or at much of anything else for that matter. For all around purposes, those kinds of scopes are handy, and they are great for photographing a nice, wide, starry field. But most beginners, and especially kids, will get bored very quickly with the lack of power of the smaller 400 or a 500 mm scope's.
On the other hand, for beginner's, I highly discourage telescope's of over 800 or 900 mm's focal length's. Because the disadvantage of getting into too that much potential power is, there much narrower field of view on the longer focal length telescopes. And a narrower field of view means it will be much more difficult to find and then keep celestial objects within the field of view. Because they are always moving! So you will have to be constantly moving your telescope to keep things in the field of view. Once you get the hang of it, it is not that hard to do, at moderate power ranges. But at higher powers, as in over 125 x's, without a motorized auto tracking mount, it can be quite a challenge to keep things in the field of view.
And if you lose the object due to an interruption in your observing, or an inadvertent bumping of your scope, relocating your object can be quite a challenge. And the higher your observing power is, the narrower your field of view will be, which means it will be much harder to relocate your "lost object".
So to me, a fairly ideal focal length range for beginners, is around 700 to 800 mm's. But let me also add here, I encourage parents, or uncle's, and aunt's, or grandparents, who are considering getting a beginner's telescope for the kids in perhaps the 10 to 14 year's old range, is to go ahead spend a few extra bucks, and spring for the cell phone assisted sky navigation feature. Because it takes so much of the huge learning curve away from the star gazing experience, for beginners as well as and for seasoned star gazers. Because it greatly helps to take a lot of the frustration out of searching for things in the vast heaven's that are often be very difficult to find, without some kind of navigational help, especially for beginners with no prior experience in astronomy.S
So, you will likely be spending somewhere close to 200 dollars.  for a decent telescope, with the cell phone assisted sky navigation included. And the really good ones range up to around 350 dollars or so. But for the 175 to 200 dollar range, I promise you, the extra hundred 30 or 40 dollars or so jump up from the 150 dollar range, is money well spent.
One word of caution here though. Many telescope's  ad's will say  "...Comes with a cell phone mount...". But this can be very misleading. because it doesn't necessarily mean that particular telescope actually has the cell phone sky navigational help feature included with it. It is a very popular thing now to take photos through a telescope, with cell phone camera's, with the assistance of a cell phone mount. So be careful, and make sure that the advertised, telescope's "cell phone mount" does indeed include the cell phone assisted sky navigational feature. Because most telescopes I have seen that are advertised as "coming with a cell phone mount" are only for the purpose of taking astronomy photos with a cellphone camera.
So be extremely careful that you understand exactly what is meant by, "It comes with a cellphone mount", or it "...Comes with a cell phone adapter"!
Now, here is my list of things to try to avoid, especially for beginners.
Firstly, avoid the "German Equatorial" type mounts. Those are the ones with the counterweights, and the odd looking telescope mounted angle. And once they are set up properly, they are indeed great for general astronomical observation, because they track the moving heavenly bodies much more smoothly than the standard "Alti-Azimuth" type mounts do. But they also require some advanced knowledge, with a lot of fiddling around, including adjusting the latitude number on the mount to your location's latitude. And then you must perfectly level your scope's mount. Then your telescope must be nearly perfectly aligned to the north star, (Polaris) in order to get your German Equatorial mounted scope set up right, and working properly.
Also the German Equatorial mount system pretty much renders a telescope as an astronomy use only instrument only. Whereas with the standard alti-azimuth type of mount and an "up righting prism" added for terrestrial viewing, your telescope can easily double as a recreational scope, for looking at birds, or observing other types of wildlife, or for the viewing distant landscapes, etc. And while, yes, you can do that with the German style mount, yet because of the odd angles you are forced to use with that mounting system, it is a very difficult thing to do.
Next, avoid any telescope's or mount's that are designed for putting on a table top, or that are billed as a,"Tabletop Telescope". Honestly, I don't know of any kind of a normal table that is anywhere near sturdy enough to set a telescope on top of it! Any small movement or even the tiniest vibrations are absolute killers for any kind of astronomy type of viewing. So the only tables I know of that are sturdy enough for a telescope to sit on top of, are those big cement tables that are sometimes found in city parks, or in roadside parks. And I don't know of anyone who has one of those monstrosities in their backyard!
So while it may sound good "on paper", the "tabletop telescope" idea, is nothing short of ridiculous!
So, assuming you take my advice  and go with a refracting telescope of some kind, my next word of warning on this choice, is to avoid the traditional, tiny, 60 mm primary lenses many "first scopes" incorporate into their design. That 60 mm objective lens figures out to be about a 2 and a half inch in diameter primary lens, which is simply too small even for a beginner.
And before I go on with our primary lens discussion, another word of warning is, to avoid like the plague, any telescope with the tiny .95 inch eyepiece configuration, which many of the cheaper telescopes still feature. Because telescopes using that "Micky Mouse" .95 inch ocular system are usually of a very poor quality. And you will also be very limited in what is available for that older and now, long obsolete eyepiece system.
The tried and true 1.25 inch ocular mount system is by far superior to the old .95 system. Now the 2 inch eyepiece mounting system is becoming much more popular. But for all except the most advanced amateur astronomers, the tried and true, 1.25 inch size eyepiece system is plenty sufficient.
Now, back to our primary lens discussion, again, stay away from those tiny, 60 mm lens telescopes! The 75 mm, or the approx 3 inch primary lens scopes are much better than the 60mm lens configuration. But I highly recommend going on up to the next size, which is the 80mm primary lens. An 80 mm lens figures out to roughly a 3.25 inch primary lens.
So you may be wondering about now, "Why all of the fuss over a whole quarter of an inch"? 😁 Without getting too technical here, it all comes down to light gathering power. And in telescopes, fractions of an inch can make a world of difference in a scope's light gathering capabilities.
For instance, "a factor of a 10 times increase in the diameter of the primary telescope lens, increases the collected light by a factor of 100 times!" So that seemingly small extra 1/4th of an inch on the 3.25 inch lens, would probably figure out to almost twice the light gathering power over that seemingly not that much smaller 3 inch lens. Yeah, it is one of those exponential factor type things! So the larger the primary lens we can afford, and the largest telescope we can somewhat easily carry, is the goal in most situations.
Of course with a beginning scope, we shouldn't be getting anywhere near either the cost or the bulk of the larger telescopes. Those are the kinds of things that tend to daunt the more serious amateurs among us.
Which brings me to my final "things to to avoid". And that is, avoid the telescopes that are built after the "Dobsonian" style, which are often known by their shorter nickname of "Dob's". Theoretically, those style scopes put most of their quality into the optics. So the "Dod" principal is bigger mirrors and longer focal length's for less money. So the tube's on most "Dobs" are made from a heavy duty cardboard. And the base mount is also a rudimentary, but fairly clever one, which is usually made of "Melamine" which is a composite pressed and laminated wood product. And it is cheaper t make. But that stuff is also very heavy!
Years ago, I made the mistake of buying an 8 inch,"Dob". And I learned the hard way, that those things are very large and unwieldy. My "8" Dob" is almost 5 feet tall, by almost 9 inches wide! And it weighs 35 pounds or so. And the mount is rather large and heavy as well. I am sure the mount alone weighs around 40 pounds.
So to me, besides being very large, heavy and unwieldy, the silly thing is also very hard for me to either find sky objects with, and once they are found, it is very to keep  that scope trained on that object.
But if you hold to my advice about not buying a reflecting scope for a beginner, these "Dob Problems" 😁 will not be a factor for you.
So that is about it, for now, in the "Do's and Don't's" of choosing that "first scope" for young beginners. And I did not even address accessories, like eyepieces, as well as the many other kinds of telescope accessories. But usually, a decent telescope will come with a couple of eyepieces, and maybe a barlow lens. And some of them even come with a filter or two. But this is far too complex of a subject to try to combine it with this article.
So, should you decide to go ahead and buy a first telescope for the kids or for your grandchildren, I wish you good luck in choosing one!