Friday, May 8, 2009

Mini Telescope

After spending some time with my friend Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff, I got to check out his new telescope. It is a Celestron FirstScope. The FirstScope pays tribute to Galileo Galilei and many of history's most notable astronomers and scientists by displaying their names around the optical tube.

It is a small Dobsonian type reflector telescope that has been named Official Product of International Year of Astronomy 2009. It features a 76 mm aperture and 300 mm focal length, yet only weighs about two pounds and stand about 18" high. I will be the first, actually the second after Bob, to admit that this little scope surprised me a lot. It is surprisingly clear, easy to use, yet sturdy and well made with smooth actions all around. It comes with a 4 mm eyepiece. All of this for only $62.49 CAD, if bought from Celestron. The only downside of ordering from Celestron is the shipping tends to be high. The FirstScope is also carried by Khan Telescope for $69.00 and cheaper shipping than Celestron.


The other neat thing about this is there is a FirstScope accessory kit for only $24.94 CAD. It features a 12.5 mm and a 6 mm eyepiece, a Moon filter, a 5x24" spotting scope, a CD-ROM explaining the basics of astronomy, and a tote bag to carry the telescope and accessories in.


I have ordered the above scope and accessory kit and am anxious to get my camera mounted to it and take some photos, but that's a topic for a future post.

5 comments:

  1. Great post Colin, finally got my camera to work with the scope, took a 3x, not 2x barlow to make it work, but the Moon looks beautiful in it, takes up the full size of the chip, just perfect.

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  2. Thanks, and good about the camera. I'll have to check it out and see how it all works so I order the right parts for my camera. I'd like to see the picture quality through the scope from a good DSLR like yours.

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  3. Nice review! I would be curious to see how you mounted up a camera also. I am very interested in this little scope and would love to hook up my cam. I have a Nikon D90 and a smaller canon powershot A710. Thanks!

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  4. I've had to add this to my wishlist. It would be absolutely perfect for us.

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  5. Sorry I didn't get back to you all sooner. I missed your comments for some reason. Anyway, this is a great little scope to get started with. Fairly good quality. You won't quite see the remnants of the Lunar lander, but close. As far as how I mounted it, I will post some photos of the setup soon so you can see how it's done. The scope is actually well built and will support a DSLR camera, such as my Nikon D80 and D90, plus adapters. Thanks for stopping by.

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