Please help me find a telescope for my 9 year old son

Seanie - are you talking about the one for 70 euro? What would he be able to see with it? Is it decent?

Yep, as Dave Mac said, it is very good for the planets. Bearing in mind that it does have a small diameter lens, you will still recognise Saturn with its rings in it, see about 3 to 4 cloud bands on Jupiter on the clearest night, dive into the biggest craters on the Moon, see the Cresent of Venus, and get to see some of the best nebulae and star clusters out there very well (M42 in Orion, the Dumbell, Wild Duck, Perseus Double, The Beehive, Andromeda, M33 Triangulum Galaxy, and loads more).

For a 9 year old, he will NEVER forget the sights in it for the first time (when I think back to my first sights as an 11 year old with a Tasco 3 inch reflector).

Seanie.

Can I ask those of you who have purchased telescopes from Lidl in the past where they kept them? Were they on shop floor or locked up and you have to request at till?

Someone told me that Lidl sometimes does this with more expensive items. I'm having visions of people pushing past me when doors open and missing them!

Kerry - when I got mine, it was just on a pallet next to all the other gear they normally sell - tools, clothing etc.

So give the food section a miss and head off to the bigger items section.

The boxes are reasonably small - maybe a couple of feet long. You'll easily carry it and get it into the car OK too. Its not heavy or bulky.

Dave

Kerry,
all of their products will be on the shop floor. It is only the expensive computer-type stuff that may be on display in a glass case near checkout that you'd have to ask beforehand. If you do plan on getting their to grab one of the scopes, you'll need a trolley, as they are big boxes (and a bit heavy to some peaople). The binos you'll carry under your arm.

Seanie.

I have both ETX 70 and Skylux in my collection and they're actually quite different and there's an argument for having both of them.

The ETX 70, used as a learning tool, is great for finding one's way around the sky once you've got the hang of setting up it's GOTO, which only requires on to know which is the Pole Star and to be able to pick out a couple of other bright stars, and in practice there's not much scope (sorry!) for confusion there. Then, it is a great scope for looking out the brighter DSOs (galaxies, clusters etc) as it's short focal length and consequent f5 aperture makes it astonishingly capable as a widefield scope. It is not so good on planets, even with its supplied 3x Barlow lens as the short focal length results in quite a bit of false colour and fringing.
It is also supremely portable - I took mine to Turkey for the eclipse - it was my wife's hand luggage

The Skylux is a better tool for planetary observation - it's f10 lens gives more uniform colour focus and greater magnification. It's all manual though, so you'll need to know where you're pointing it. The key thing, and it's why so many first-time telescope owners end up disappointed, is to make sure the finderscope points exactly the same way as the main 'scope. A good few Skylux owners have called me telling me "it doesn't work" until I've lined up the finder for them. Of course if you're joining the local club there'll be someone there to help.

On my last outreach talk I took a Skylux along and the weather co-operated so that some 20 people got their first view of Saturn's Rings!

Paul I will ask him again but I'm thinking stars is what he's interested in most. Will he still be able to look at planets with it, just not as well as with Skylux?


Thanks to everyone for your help. I was having dreams last night about queuing up at Lidl.

Is it likely that I'll nap one if I'm there very early? Please say yes!