Sunday, May 17, 2009

Another New Mini Telescope

While researching the Celestron FirstScope, I stumbled upon the Galileoscope. The telescope is called a Cornerstone Project of the International Year of Astronomy. The idea behind this telescope is to help educate people on what Galileo Galilei first observed with his telescopes, namely Jupiter's moons as well as discoveries involving the Sun, Moon and Venus. The telescope itself looks really neat.


Another important aspect of this international telescope project is to assist those who wouldn't normally be able to afford a telescope with being able to do so. This project is endorsed by the United Nations and UNESCO and the aim is to help stimulate worldwide interest in science.


This refractor telescope comes as a 30-piece kit with simple instructions for no-tools assembly. Apparently, it can be assembled in 5 minutes or less. It is constructed from ABS tubes that snap together. Its achromatic optics include a 50 mm objective lens of focal length 500 mm, an eyepiece of focal length 20 mm (magnification 25x), and a 2x Barlow lens, effectively increasing the magnification to 50x. It accepts almost any optical accessory that has a standard 1¼-inch barrel, which means that a camera should be able to be mounted to it with a 1¼- inch T-ring adapter. The only part needed is a tripod.


Below is an image of the Moon taken through the Galileoscope. Looks really good. I'm excited to receive mine. They are supposed to be shipped in early June, so hopefully that doesn't change.

2 comments:

  1. Lol, something more to spend money on in this hobby we have, at least it is affordable and a great idea to get the person on the sideline to get their first telescope, great post Colin.

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  2. Thanks Bob. Hopefully I don't stumble upon any more useful things. This should be a good start though. I'm almost thinking of adding on to the kids play center and adding on an observing level. I'll let you know how that goes. This scope and the Firstscope are perfect for someone like me who just wants to use it for astro-photography and not spend thousands of dollars on a telescope.

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