I sometimes have customers inquire as to whether we sell “cheaper” telescopes. The answer is no.
We will not ever sell ‘yoke’ telescopes, or cheap equatorial telescopes and the like. But why? Read on.
There is undoubtedly a market for cheap telescopes, every year, for Birthdays and Christmas, and for various other reasons, parents and kind relatives rush to buy a child that special thing – a telescope – for the “budding astronomer”. We miss out on those sales – but why? It’s because they will provide a fairly terrible experience to a user. There is nothing good to say about them. Rather than ‘encourage’ astronomy, they are notorious for killing any interest in Astronomy. Children do not blame equipment, which looks amazing and colourful, and has plenty of exciting bits and pieces that come with it. They will blame themselves when they can’t center on a target, can’t find anything, things appear only for a few seconds and go away, everything shakes like a tree, need I go on? And they conclude that Astronomy is not for them. They will never take that telescope out again. How terribly sad. Every telescope we sell will give a wonderful experience.
So buy with confidence – and if we don’t have something for you in the right price range just yet, why not save a little longer, and make that next years present, or purchase a much easier to use pair of binoculars, or even just buy “A Backyard Astronomers Guide” for a far better introduction to the skies!
P.S. You can read our takes on these popular and common “cheap” telescopes here.
