Telescope Reviews: Top 3 public demonstration telescopes

I love my 8" Hardin for outreach -- it's a great example of how good a telescope can be had for the price of a video game system. It's a perfect scope for sidewalk astronomy, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

That being said, the views are nothing like the 22". Nobody has problems seeing M13, and everyone gets excited about the view in the 22" (or our club's 20" in our new roll-off roof observatory). Looking through the 8", some people are excited, some people are disappointed. The general public doesn't have years of observing experience so what they can see through any given scope is going to be a lot less than the scope's owner, which is why I think a big scope is a great outreach instrument when the situation makes that possible.

In our large roll-off observatory, we have a 4.25" Dob, a 6" Criterion Dynascope, a 9.25" fork-mounted Celestron, and a 10" Dob -- in addition to the 20" steel fork-mounted giant. Having smaller scopes next to a big one gives people a sense of perspective and what they can expect, which I think is a good thing -- especially when joining the club gives anyone access all of these scopes.

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-Astrosetz
www.astrosetz.com