Re: First Scope Advice (revised)

From: Tony Flanders (tony_flanders_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: 8 Nov 2004 10:47:10 -0800

Chris L Peterson <clp@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:<lfeso0pp0hh7ts4kijmbmag0or5uu3b25g@4ax.com>...

> Advising against buying a telescope at a department
> store is certainly not "elitist". It is simply recognizing
> that most telescopes sold in these stores are junk ...

Advising people against buying a department-store scope
isn't elitist, but calling them "junk" definitely is.
The connotation of "junk" is that the speaker has superior
powers of discrimination, that the article in question is
beneath him (or her). Just remember that Galileo would
have killed to get one of those "junk" scopes! And also
remember that most of those cheap 60mm refractors have
quite respectable objectives -- lenses that are arguably
worth the entire cost of the telescopes.

If somebody's already bought a scope at a department store,
it's certainly worth seeing if it can be fixed up. But for
the small minority that actually takes the trouble to ask
beforehand about buying a telescope, steering them toward
a department store is an injustice. It's not a matter of
money at all -- on the contrary, the whole problem with
department stores is that you're unlikely to find a good
bargain. For Skywatch '05, I reviewed one telescope
(the new Orion Space Probe 3) that cost $100 and gave me
several evenings of very enjoyable, almost trouble-free
observing. I could easily spend exactly the same amount
of money at a department store and get a telescope that
would leave me cursing and swearing after five minutes.
And as Chris Petersen says later in his message, it
would be extremely hard for the average beginner, using
those two scopes on the floor of a store in daylight,
to discern the little details that make the difference
between a scope that's very easy to use and a scope that
is almost impossible to use as it comes out of the box.

Moreover, with some really good telescopes -- ones that
highly experienced amateurs are glad to keep in their
stables -- now available for under $250 including mount
and eyepieces, the importance of shopping carefully is
greater than ever before. There's an awful lot of people
who would be happy to spend $150 or $200 on their first
scope if they really understood how much extra pleasure
it would give them.

    - Tony Flanders

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