Re: Have refractors hurt the hobby?

From: Ernie Dunbar (gromm_at_NO.SPAM.lightspeed.THANKS.ca)
Date: 11/06/04 

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 21:51:25 -0800

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 00:18:23 -0500, RichA <none@none.com> wrote:

>But what if the only scopes offered at the entry level are decent
>quality ones? Celestron and Meade tried this a decade+ ago, offering
>decent beginner scopes, 1-1/4" eyepieces, good finders, etc, but they
>couldn't sustain it and started selling the junk themselves to compete
>with the odious Bushnell and Tasco.

I think that you haven't been paying too much attention to these
low-end scopes lately. The 76mm Tasco reflector I bought this summer
has a 1-1/4" focuser and eyepieces. Although the focuser is made of
plastic, it's been holding up well so far. I've heard that some years
ago, they had non-standard focusers, and this made owning one a royal
pain at best, and made getting serious about the hobby a lot harder.

I will readily concede that getting a reflector was my saving grace
though. The funny thing is that I had already made up my mind to buy a
reflector based on my limited prior experience with telescopes -
spotting scopes mostly - and how much of a pain they were to use to
look up at the sky. But because of this, and the fact that I got mine
at London Drugs and not Vancouver Telescope, I'm lucky because I'm not
getting the horrible chromatic aberration that I would get from a
cheap refractor.

While this isn't the greatest telescope in the world, (far from it)
I'm still having lots of fun, gaping in awe, and learning all at the
same time. And isn't that what it's all about? I haven't been
irritated or frustrated by this first purchase, I'm just quickly
outgrowing it.

But hey, I now know for sure that I'm into this. And I didn't have to
spend a lot to find out.

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