Re: Have refractors hurt the hobby?

From: Chris Rowland (chris.rowland_at_dsl.pipex.spam.com)
Date: 11/05/04 

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:54:05 +0000

On 05 Nov 2004 14:29:04 GMT, jonisaacs@aol.com (Jon Isaacs) wrote:

>Rich A. wrote:
>
>>About 17 years ago, Meade and Celestron tried to help out here. They
>>both offered only decent (not great, but workable) 60mm refractors
>>with reasonable 1-1/4" eyepieces and real finderscopes. This was a
>>noble attempt by them to "upscale" the beginner. It worked for a bit,
>>but ultimately, both companies for whatever reason decided to dispense
>>with all pretense at being the hobby saviours and started selling
>>the same garbage scopes Tasco and Bushnell and Swift, etc, had been
>>selling.
>
>Actually, Meade does produce such a telescope, 60AZ-A and it costs $50 at
>Walmart. After reading the Sky and Telescope editorial, I decided I would see
>exactly how bad these scopes are.
>
>What do you get for your $50?
>
>A color free 60mm F11.7 objective, a metal tube, and a surprisingly smooth 1.25
>inch plastic focuser. It comes with 2 decent 1.25 inch MA eyepieces, a 25mm
>and a 9mm, it has a full aperture, reasonably sharp 5x24 finder (unlike finders
>of the past that were stopped down), a real mirror diagonal, a chincy but
>workable barlow, and a mount that takes a while to settle down, probably a true
>5 second settling time.

A few months ago somebody turned up at a Practical Astronomy session
with a department store scope, some sort of Bushnell. 60mm f/11ish,
alt az mount, up to 625 magnification, the works.

If it was £50 (or $50) that would be fine, but it wasn't. It was £299!

For that price she could have got a NexStar 80 GT.

We did our best to be polite but it was awfully difficult to see this
as otherwise than a ripoff.

It isn't cheap department store scopes that are the problem as much as
expensive department store scopes.

Chris