First light!

I bought my kids an Edmund Scientific Astroscan. I don't know what year it is, but the views were great. My 3 year old was busy rolling down the hill, so it was my 6 year old daughter, me, and a funny looking red thing called a telescope. We started with the moon before it even got dark. It was crystal clear. After we were done with the moon, the stars started to come out. Our first star was of course was Sirius. Our second target was Betelgeuse. She was able to see the color difference. We tried to line up objects with just the scope itself. With no finder, my daughter was short of patience just looking for the moon. So after it got dark enough, I got my laser out, and just rested against the focuser, and it worked perfect. Every star was in view without having to adjust it. We spent some time in Orion. When I got m42 in view, she was able to see the “smoke”. The grin on my face lasted a few minutes on that one. We moved onto m45, and even I was impressed. I haven’t pulled out my ED80 or C9.25 since last year, but this 99.00, 4.25 f4.2 scope really shined. I have never owned a rich field scope or even looked through one before, but I sure do like this one so far. It got as dark as it was going to get by this time, despite the almost full moon, it was time for a planet! I got Saturn in view, I didn’t tell her about the rings, but she was able to pick up on them. It took me awhile to resolve the rings, she did it in about 5 seconds. By this time, she just wanted to point at stars with the laser, and just point the scope at them. It was the most fun I ever had with a scope. The set up time took me ….oh ya, the time it took to set up the card table! The scope typically comes with a RKE 25mm, this one came with a Meade series 3000 25mm. Maybe someone can tell me which is better, not that it makes any difference. When Mom came out to tell us to come in for dinner, she was able to point to the objects, even though it had been an hour since viewing them. I cant wait for our next session. Thanks for reading. Dave

There are times and places when pure simplicity rules and this is one of them. Congrats on a very fine family-oriented scope purchase.

This is one of the reasons I built a 6" f/6 dob -- fits in the trunk of a car, kids can easily reach the eyepiece, and setup takes 2 seconds. 8)

Thank you for sharing such a great story David... it sure is wonderful to be able to share with our family some of our hobby...

Take care, and clear skies! 8)

For pointing I use a Tasco Pro Point red dot on the Astroscan. You can leave both eyes open and get right on the target. Meade 26mm Plossl with an Orion ultra block will let you see lots of "smoke" around M42. These things are a lot of fun.

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"The scope typically comes with a RKE 25mm, this one came with a Meade series 3000 25mm. Maybe someone can tell me which is better, not that it makes any difference."

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At f/4, plossl's may actually work a little better. Any ep that's well corrected down to f/4.

Lots of folks are now using Rigel's on these. But to be honest, that's a $35 finder on a hundred dollar scope, which will already do a 3* field with a low power ep. Originally these came with a simple peep sight for this very reason.