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I get a lot of questions this time of year asking for advice on buying a telescope as a gift. “What should buy?” “How much should I spend?”, things like that.
This is the first year I’ve had a blog during Christmas so I’ll post some general advice here and offer specific recommendations in later posts, then I’ll point people here.
First things first, don’t spend less that about $350.00 on a telescope. Possible exceptions to this may be these iOptron refractors or Craigslist. I’ve been able to find some pretty good deals on CL, I once bought a $500.00 refractor for $150.00. You need to know what you’re doing though before you can recognize those deals.
As for the iOptron telescopes, while I can highly recommend the mount, I’ve never looked through the eyepiece of the optical tube assembly they are offering, so I can’t recommend the telescope itself. Looking at the picture, I can tell it’s probably built by a generic telescope maker, probably in China. I imagine the image quality ranges mediocre to adequate.
This telescope will probably serve you well, especially if you need to color-coordinate with your iPod. I do like that mount though, for the money, it’s really good.
Anyway, back to the basics of buying a telescope. If you don’t have $350.00 or so, don’t get a telescope. Save your money or buy one of these binoculars. Spending money on one of those cheap telescopes you see in Costco, Kmart, WalMart, etc will just end up frustrating you or the person you bought it for and it’ll end up in the closet or for sale on craigslist.
You’re better off not buying at all than getting one of those.
Which brings me to where to buy a telescope. Based on the above, it should come as no surprise that I think you should stay away from the department and discount stores. If you don’t have a quality camera store in your area, then plan on buying online. Some of the better camera stores have a telescope section, and some even hire a ‘telescope guy’ that can actually answer questions. Those are usually safe places to get a telescope.
Most people don’t have access to one of those however, so you’ll need to buy online. I’ve had really good luck with Astronomics and Orion Telescopes. Everything I’ve ever purchased from either of these places arrived promptly and in good shape.
Buying online means you should probably do it now if you want to get it on time.
I’ll post next on what to buy. Here’s a preview: I’d love to have this optical tube assembly on this mount.
Technorati Tags: binoculars, buying a telescope, telescopes
I purchased the ioptron goto upgrade for my Cg-5 mount. it would not update and although it claimed to support an autoguider port it was not compatable with any of the autoguiders on the market. after 2 months and one trip back to Ioptron for repairs Ioptron finaly refunded my money…I would not recoment it personaly………..
Yeah, when I got my mount, the box was in very bad shape and almost fell out. I also didn’t get my power adapter or any documentation.
What was weird is on that same day, I got an email explaining that they were aware of the lack of quality shipping boxes and that the power adapters weren’t included.
I received my power adapter the next week.
Overall, I think iOptron is a good company and trying to do well by it’s customers. It appears to be having some growing pains, but they’ve handled everything well as far as I am concerned.
I love this mount, and you’re right, for the money it’s a good value.
Hi, I recently purchased the iOptron GoTo mount. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. They forgot to include the part of the tripod that holds the mount and holds the tripod together. They were nice about it, but it took quite a long time for them to ship it. Then I had trouble putting it together; I did download directions, but still had trouble. I phoned Chris in tech support and after he told me what to do, it all went together ok. I have an Orion Mak-90 that I am going to use with it, also an Orion ST 80. The directions say you can use the mount manually by loosening the altitude and azimuth screws; that doesn’t seem to work too well, but I haven’t really given it a chance. I also have a Vixen SkyPod mount which I found difficult to use because the screen is greenish background with small type; very hard to read and the green freaked out some other astronomers that were observing near me. If I like the iOptron, then I’ll try to sell the Vixen. The Vixen is way more expensive so this little “cube” if it works should be a good buy. The January issue of Sky and Telescope mentioned the “cube” as one of the best buys of 2007. I think your choice of a Christmas telescope might be a good one.