Which telescope

[Tormod]

I am thinking about getting a telescope for me and my oldest daughter (she turns 6 at Christmas). We're not getting anything too expensive as it probably won't be used very often, but it would be nice to have something that can last a few years.

Basically it needs to be very portable and I would really like to be able to use it for photography. I have a Canon EOS 500 camera (35mm film).

Any recommendations/suggestions? AFAIK most brands are available here in Norway. I've looked at the Meade ETX-90AT but it costs way too much for our needs.

[C1ay]

I have a Meade DS-2130 that I've been satisfied with for a scope to use around the house. It has a 5" primary mirror that will resolve the rings of Saturn and the spots on Jupiter. For anything else, I'm a member of a local astronomy club that has an 8", 10" and 20" scope at the club observatory. You might look to see if you have something similar in your area. You'll find aperature fever will drive you to look for an alternative to bring those objects you just can't get with a smaller, affordable scope.

For photography I would highly recommend using a ccd and recording movies of the objects you want to observe on a laptop. You can then use a program like Astrostack to really render sharp images from your movies by stacking frames. Some of the people in the club have actually fabricated their own adapters so they could fit small web cams to their scopes for this.

[Jay-qu]

For a kid I think you cant go wrong with a good set of binoculars. Just because they are easy to point and look, they let you use both eyes, have a nice wide field of view and dont take any setting up (also can be used in the day time). While I have a small scope, I find myself using my binoculars a lot more and they where less than half the price of my scope. I do want to upgrade my scope eventually to get a nice sized reflector, I wouldnt bother getting a refractor.

You may also want to consider the kind of mount that it comes on, equitorials are great, but are a waste if you dont plan on learning how to use it and so a dobsonian(sp?) mount would be better.

[Tormod]

Thanks guys! There is an astro festival in Oslo this Sunday so we'll see what we can find there.