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Best Telescopes for Kids and Families
Best Telescopes for Kids and Families
We are parents of young kids, and we know how important it is for them to have a good experience when looking through a telescope. We've put together a collection of telescopes that are quick to set up, and easy to use. These will give incredible views of the moon and, in good seeing conditions, the planets in our solar system.
They're also great for looking at the Messier objects (a list of 110 interesting objects in the night sky). The Celestron FirstScope is an exception in this group, this is a great scope for very young children that will deliver nice views of the moon.
In order to get the most out of these telescopes we recommend a good quality high-power eyepiece. As a general rule of thumb we recommend 25-35x magnification per inch of aperture. For example, a 100mm (4 inch) telescope will give ideal planetary views with 100-140x magnification. For most of the telescopes on this list that means a 5mm eyepiece like this .
Planetary and lunar viewing are dramatically improved when contrasting filters are used. For example, using a blue filter on Jupiter will highlight the cloud bands and red eye. Using an ND25 filter on the moon will give reveal much better detail and contrast on the lunar surface. The FS2 filter set includes an ND25 filter for looking at the moon, and three colour filters that can be used on the planets and other night-sky objects .
Our top recommendations are the Celestron StarSense Explorer telescopes. These are great telescopes that help you to navigate the night sky by leveraging a cell phone to tell you what you're looking at and to help you find other planets or stars in the sky.
The best value in this collection is the PowerSeeker 80AZS. This is a short tube telescope that's widely used for visual observing, and as an accessory on more advanced astrophotography rigs. It's an inexpensive telescope that delivers better views than the price suggests.
The SkyWatcher Star Travel telescopes are very nice optical tubes on sturdy mounts. These are excellent options for visual astronomy. They're also great for nature or bird watching, and they're very easy to connect a DSLR to for some basic astrophotography.
Finally we have the Heritage 150 and 130 models. These are bigger aperture telescopes that can deliver very bright views. They are extremely compact for their mirror size and are easy to take camping. All you need is a sturdy table and these will open the night sky to you.
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