TELESCOPES FOR KIDS

Need some advice on which is the best scope to buy for your budding astronomer. At TaxiMarket, we've sold more telescopes and accessories than any other eBay dealer. With more than 35,000 positive feedbacks, we're here to help.
Kids 6 - 11
We've got little telescopes for little people. For our youngest stargazers, we recommend smaller and simpler telescopes that anyone can use. Of course, very young children are going to need supervision with any telescope, but these telescopes are so easy to use that even the youngest children will have a great time exploring the universe.
80mm Portable Telescopes -- no doubt this is the best telescope for young kids. Portable, light-weight, and easy to set up, this telescope is not just a toy. It provides very nice views of the Moon, Saturn's rings, Jupiter and much more. Plus it is ideal for daytime use -- you'd be surprised the fun things your kids will do with the scopes during the day! Comes with a carrying case.
50mm Telescope -- if you're on a tight budget, consider a basic 50mm telescope. This is the "classic" first scope for a young child, and is fairly light weight and easy to handle. Comes included with a full-size tripod, so the little ones may need some help setting
Kids 11 - 13
For older kids there are more options. The trick here is to get a scope you're older children will use and learn to love, without buying something so big and complex that they'll put it in the closet and never use it again. The scopes we highlight here are easy-to use, yet still powerful enough to give great eye-popping space views.
3 Inch Reflector Telescope -- We love our great 3 inch reflector telescopes -- a scope big enough to get them excited about astronomy, but still easy enough to handle and have a ton of fun.
80mm Portable Telescopes -- True, this portable telescope is great for little kids, but it is also an excellent scope for pre-teens. It is so portable (and comes with a carrying case) that it is perfect for stashing in the trunk or taking on camping trips, summer vacations or over to a friend's house.
90mm Portable Telescope -- This is really the "best buy" telescope for kids of all ages. This 90mm is extremely powerful, but still simple to set-up and use. Pre-teens and teens alike will have hours of unsupervised space viewing with this great instrument. As an added bonus, with right-side-up viewing, it is ideal for daytime use as a spotting scope.
Kids 14 & up
Spaced crazed teens will flip over our larger 4.5" telescopes. These are among our favorites for adults too. With teens who ware more serious about astronomy, you're ready to tackle a telescope that takes a little more effort and patience in order to use, but payoff with incredible views and higher-end functionality like star tracking. A little less bulky, but nearly as powerful, check out the 70mm refractor -- a great value buy.
4.5 Inch Telescopes -- Well, this is a serious telescope for serious young people. But if your teenager wants to explore the heavens and have an instrument that will last a lifetime, we recommend this terrific telescope.
70mm Telescope -- Probably the most well-rounded refractor telescope we offer, the 70mm gives great views both at night and during the day. But it is a serious astronomer's instrument with an "equatorial mounting" that lets you track the stars as they move through the night sky. Your kids will love it.
90mm Portable Telescope -- This is really the "best buy" telescope for kids of all ages. This 90mm is extremely powerful, but still simple to set-up and use. Pre-teens and teens alike will have hours of unsupervised space viewing with this great instrument. As an added bonus, with right-side-up viewing, it is ideal for daytime use as a spotting scope.
Be sure to visit the TaxiMarket eBay Store for great values on telescopes from eBay's #1 telescope dealer.

A Short Biography

Carl Zeiss (September 11, 1816 – December 3, 1888) was an optician commonly known for the company he founded, Zeiss. Zeiss himself also made a few contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses. Raised in Weimar, Germany, he became a notable lens maker in the 1840s when he created high quality lenses that were "wide open", or in other words, had a very large aperture range that allowed for very clear images. He did this in the city of Jena at a self opened workshop, where he started his lens making career. At first his lenses were only used in the production of microscopes but when cameras were invented, his company (Zeiss) began manufacturing high quality lenses for cameras. He died on December 3, 1888 in Jena Germany, the very place that he began his life of lenses.
Today, the company he founded produces some of the finest quality opticals available in the world. The Zeiss name is synonymous with quality and state of the art performance. From Nikon to NASA, Zeiss has been branded as a mark of quality craftmanship that is recognized by photographers and scientists the world

EDMUND ASTROSCAN 2001

The ORIGINAL Edmund Scientific Astroscan (first called Astroscan 2001) was an inexpensive, high-performance telescope that is easy-to-use, maintenance-free and completely portable. Its wide field of view, beautiful images and ease of use make it an excellent telescope for beginner and expert stargazers alike.The heart of the Astroscan is its 1/8 wave, Edmund USA over coated primary parabolic mirror. (ground, polished and over coated in U.S.A. Edmund Optics Facility to it's optical limit) Where other telescopes use an inexpensive spherical mirror, the Astroscan's parabolic mirror has a deeper, more complex figure that focuses all incoming light rays to the same point. This results in crisp, clear images without any of distorting effects of spherical mirror aberration.The Astroscan is a Newtonian Rich-Field reflector that provides a breathtaking 3 degrees (or six full moons) of field, literally making this instrument an open window to the universe. The wide field-of-view makes finding astronomical objects far easier than with other telescopes and allows for the best views of deep sky objects, or groups of objects, that won't even fit into the fields of other telescopes.With the optional Barlow Lens (available separately or included in the Deluxe Package), you can view Saturn's rings and the Cloud bands of Jupiter. The Astroscan really excels, though, when you turn it to deep sky objects like galaxies, nebulae and star clusters...the Pleiades are truly stunning! At higher magnifications, the Astroscan's images are crisp, clear and powerful.The Astroscan has a unique design that won it the 1976 Industrial Design Award. Its creative design has eliminated the cumbersome and complicated mounts typical of most telescopes. Simply place its padded base on any firm, flat surface and you are immediately ready to observe. Its motions are positive and natural, with nothing to tighten or adjust. It's simple enough for a child to use the first time out.In 2000 Edmund Scientific was purchased by Science Kit and Boreal Laboratories, a western New York based science supply company. Science Kit and Boreal Laboratories is part of a group of companies that provide science supplies to elementary, middle, and high schools as well as colleges and universities. This group falls under the unofficial umbrella "VWR Education" and are owned by VWR International, a multi-national conglomerate with offices in India, China, Europe, Canada and the United States. They are no longer affliated with Edmund Optics Inc. As of 2007, online sales now make up the bulk of Edmund Scientific's revenues. The company still sells telescopes, microscopes, surplus optics, magnets and fresnel lenses, but the emphasis is on science-themed toys, novelty items, gifts, and gadgets

Quick Guide on Fraud Auctions for New Ebay'ers

Here's a quick guide on "red flags" to look for in fraud auctions (typically the higher priced auctions). It's fairly easy to detect these frauds and report them to Ebay if you know some simple things to watch for. 5 simple Red Flags... 1. User ID kept private. 2. Contact seller by an email link before bidding or for info (not through Ebay system) in the text of the description. This is pretty much a DEAD give-away it's fraud! 3. Very cheap or free shipping for large heavy items. 4. "One day" auction only, vice for a week or so. 5. Photos and descriptions were previously seen from other REAL auctions. There are LOTS more fraud warnings but these 5 should be enough to keep you from bidding on the item. See other guides here about scams, etc. they explain quite a bit of the details but again, these simple 5 are serious red flags. Also be a good Ebay'er and use the Security Center button on the bottom of the auction page to inform Ebay of the fraud auction. And ya know what they say... if it's too good to be true, it probably is!

Blue 3" Reflector Telescope Kids Present Toy No Reserve

THIS TELESCOPE COMES LOADED WITH THE FOLLOWING FEATURES & ACCESSORIES:
76mm (3 inches) concave objective mirror
Focal Length : 700mm
20mm Eyepiece
12mm Eyepiece
4mm Eyepiece
2x Barlow Lens
Moon Filter
Large Collapseable Tripod with Accessory Tray
Alt-Az Type Telescope Mount
Dust Free Eyepiece Cleaning Cloth
Map of the Surface of the Moon & Giant Solar System Poster

Telescopes 101 -- A BEGINNER'S GUIDE

Buying a telescope is easy! Especially when you have help. If you want to learn a little about telescopes and space, this "Telescopes 101" guide should get your mind grounded before you start exploring the stars. So let's learn. . . .
Telescopes make space objects look brighter
That's basically it, and it's the most important thing about telescopes. Telescopes gather light from space,and blast it into your eyes so you can get a fabulous, astonishing look at star clusters, dual-star systems, distant galaxies, and details of the Moon or Saturn's rings in ways you can never see with the naked eye because the objects are too small and way to dark.
Telescopes make space objects look bigger too
Yes, telescopes magnify objects, that's true. But magnification is really not that important. Just a little bit of magnification is enough to see all kinds of great space stuff. But boosting light gathering power is where it's at in buying a telescope The more light you can suck down from the sky, the more you'll see. Don't worry about magnification, just all telescopes have enough of that -- go for the light gathering power.
Bigger is better
At least in telescopes, that's true. The bigger the main opening of the tube, then the more light the telescope can collect. More light means you see more. The size of the telescope's main opening is called the 'aperture" and it is typically measured in inches or millimeters. In just about all cases, the larger the aperture, or opening, the better the space viewing will be. Our biggest telescope has an 8" opening and is great for backyard observing.
Mirrors vs Glass
How does it all work? Well, telescopes gather straight beams of light and focus them on a single point. This magnifies what you're looking at and makes it seem larger and brighter. Telescopes either use a round, bowl shaped mirror to focus the light, or a glass lens to do the job, or a combination of both. Depending on what you're looking for, you might consider one or the other.

Your first telescope

Buying your first telescope can be a terrible experience. There are so many out there. And so different. And all these numbers. Want to know what to look for and avoid buying the marketing humbug instead of the real thing? Read on if you want to know.Size matters, honeyFirst of all realise what is the main function of any telescope. Mind you it's not magnifying - even if the marketing people would like you to believe so. No - the telescope's main function is to gather light. Grasp as many photons coming from that faint and whispy nebula dozens of thousands of light years away. Or the ones coming from a galaxy billions light years away. Some of these objects are the size of the moon or even a lot larger. So ... you don' t need to magnify them. It's the difference between your eye's pupil (dilated at night to something in range of 8mm) and the telescope objective or mirror diameter (also known as the aperture). It is this diameter that is responsible for gathering light and pumping it to your eye (and as for the pumping.... never attempt to look at the sun with any kind of device that has not been designed for such purpose. Telescopes, binoculars will pump all this energy down into your brain frying the eye on the way there). And if you see a 70mm telescope advertised to magnify 700x (even, or especially when it is outfitted with barlows and eyepieces to that effect) go elsewhere. A very simple rule of thumb for maximum magnification is that for any given aperture the maximum magnification you can get on a good night is slightly more than twice the aperture diameter in mm (three times for good and pricey apochromatic refractors). So that 70mm scope will go up to about 150x magnification. After that you will just see a bigger blob with less details.The next big thing - who you are, where you are, and what you want to look atAnd this is where simplicity ends... after all, there are so many different types of scopes out there. Various constructions. Various designs. So what is the next determining factor. It is what you want to do with the scope. If it is to go after that good looking neighbour buy small azimuth mounted refractor. It will also show the Moon and it's craters, and if you are lucky you might spot Jupiter and the galilean moons before they put you in for spying on other people. But if you are serious about looking at the sky think of how you want to observe. Are you going to look at the sky, or do you want to eventually photograph it. Where are you observing from. Do you have to drive 50 miles to get a clear, black sky. Or do Milky Way shines in your backyard? Looking at these issues will help you decide first about the mount of the telescope and then on the type. If you live in a city, and need to drive to countryside to see black sky you will want a portable telescope of smaller size, and less weight. If you are lucky to have Milky Way as the only neighbour in your backyard you may be better off with something much larger. If you do not plan on doing any astrophotography - a huge aperture telescope on a dobsonian mout is the best way to go (and for the citydwellers you might consider truss-tube dobsonian which will not make you choose between a scope and friends or family). If, on the other hand, you want to go into astrophotography eventually - think about equatorially mounted scope that you can add motors to at some point. Nice looking GoTo telescopes on the altazimuth mount (the fork type, or assymetrical fork) are... suprise... not so great for astrophotography if they don't come with something called equatorial wedge, and... not so great for visual observations since you pay huge lot of bucks for the electronics and get a small glass to go with the 40,000 object database (out of which you may actually be able to see 50 or 100 objects). So you are probably better of with a simple reflector (for visual) or refractor (for photographic) on a simple equatorial mount. Just make sure it is a sturdy mount. The best telescope on a flimsy mount will show you nothing but wobbling, hopping and whizzing blips of light with no sense.Long, medium or shortAnd finally the construction. If you want high contrast, high magnification images of planets - forget newtonians and get a long refractor or a maksutov. But also forget the deep sky wonders. But remember - there are less then ten interesting objects you will be able to observe visually with an average telescope of this type. So, unless you are are planetary freak go elsewhere. If you do not care for high contrast, but want to SEE more of the deep space - buy aperture, buy a newtonian reflector. It is usually huge, uncompromising, making your trips to the country in one car a thing of a past ;). There is also a third way - a short refractor. These have been either expensive or optically inferior in the past but recent technological advances made designing them easier and the new ones are usually great - more compact than either long refractors (with usually tha same amount of chromatic distortion) or newtons (with better constrast and sharpness than newtons). And if you have a heap of money and want a big and compact telescope consider a Schmidt-Cassegrain. But only when you know that spending nights outside is something you really wnat to do for the rest of your life :)