Starwatch: Give the gift of universe this year

Published 2:21 pm Thursday, December 4, 2008

There are so many ways to go and so many options for giving the gift of the universe to your family. You could spend astronomical amounts of money on telescopes and accessories.

In light of the rough economy this holiday season, you probably don’t want to spend tons of money; and the money you spend, you want to spend wisely.

With one exception, everything I recommend is under $500. Also, except for one product that’s obvious, I’m not receiving a dime from anything I tell you about, so I feel free to recommend specific products.

By no means am I making myself the guru of astronomical gifts, but I have had a lot of experience in this area. Sometimes I’ve even learned the hard way. I don’t want you to wind up with any lemons.

When holiday shopping for that celestial someone in your life, I think the first thing that comes to mind is a telescope. I’ll get to those in a little bit, but there are also many other accessories you can consider as well.

In fact, I think it’s best to stay away from telescopes, especially if your giftee is a complete novice. I know of too many folks, young and old, who receive a telescope and things go downhill. Besides the moon and a few bright planets, they don’t really know where to point the scope or what to look for, and it eventually heads for its permanent home in a closet, laundry room or wherever.

At all of my star parties and classes I preach that it’s best to really get to know the constellations with your naked eye or with the help of binoculars before you sink hard-earned money into a telescope.

First on the list of potential gifts are books. I think the best book for kids is “The Kids Book of the Night Sky” by Ann Love, Jane Drake and Heather Collins. You can pick it up at most bookstores for under $15 if they have it. I’ve also seen it for sale on Amazon.com. I think it’s a wonderful book for grade school kids, especially if they go through it with Mom or Dad.

For older kids and adults, I’m a real believer in two books by Canadian author Terence Dickenson. I think his best book is a new edition of “Nightwatch” published in 2006. It’s a little more technical, but really covers all the bases. The only thing I don’t like are some of the starmaps, but you can get by with them.

In 1987, he put out a book called “Exploring the Night Sky: The Equinox Astronomy Guide for Beginners.” It’s one of my all-time favorites. You can find both of these Dickinson books in bookstores or online for less than $35.

I hope this doesn’t come across as horribly self-serving, but I have to also recommend my own book, “Washington Starwatch.” You can pick one up for under $25. It has monthly star maps, constellation charts, “updated” mythology stories on the constellations, planet information, and easy-to-understand explanations of stars, galaxies and more.

Stargazing software for computers can be fun and educational. You can literally turn your desktop or laptop computer into your own personal planetarium. You also can print out your own star maps with them. In my opinion the best ones come from Starry Night. The Web site is www.starrynightstore.com. I specifically recommend Starry­night Enthusiast 6.2, priced under $80. For about $150, you can pick up the advanced version, Starrynight Pro.

With the advance of GPS technology, a couple of really neat gadgets have come out that allow you to find any star, constellation, planet or whatever in the sky, and also provide great information on whatever you’re aiming at.

I think the best one is Sky Scout from Celestron telescopes. It’s a small brick-shaped device you point at the sky and it identifies anything it’s pointing to. You can also type in whatever you’re searching for, such as a galaxy or star cluster, and it will direct you using arrows on the screen to help you find it. Use this with a star map, and you’ll really, really get to know your way around the night sky and learn a lot about what you’re seeing in the process. Just check out the Celestron Web site at www.celestron.com and type in “Sky Scout” on the site search. It’s usually priced under $250.

When it comes to telescopes, I’m a huge disciple of reflector telescopes. Isaac Newton knew what he was doing when he designed this kind of telescope in the 17th century.

The most important thing any telescope can do for you is gather light. The more light you’re able to gather, the clearer the image. Many folks think magnification of objects you see in the heavens is most important, but it definitely takes a back seat to light gathering.

Reflector telescopes collect light with a concave parabolic mirror in the rear of the scope. The bigger the mirror, the more light gathering and the better the scope is. When most people think of telescopes, I think what comes to mind are refractor telescopes that collect light through a lens at the front of the telescope tube and lets you view with an eyepiece in the rear. Refractors are OK, but I think reflectors give you more bang for your buck.

I have nothing against the big department stores, but in my opinion, you don’t want to buy a telescope at one. There’s a lot of junky scopes out there, and they usually wind up on department store shelves. Here are some specific recommendations I have for telescopes, starting with the lowest prices:

The ExploraScope 80 telescopes from Celestron: Search their Web site, www.celestron.com. This scope is perfect for kids, and you can pick one up for about $40, or even less.

The StarBlast 6 Astro telescope from Orion Telescopes:This is a small, 6-inch, easy-to-use reflector telescope for older kids. Search for it on the Orion telescope site at www.telescope.com. The price is under $250.

The Lightbridge 8-inch reflector telescope from Meade Telescopes: Now we’re getting into larger scopes for adults. Not only is this a quality scope, but you can easily assemble it and break it down, so you can take it on the road to some really dark skies. Search for it at www.meade.com It sells for $399.

The SkyQuest XT8 ­IntelliScope with Object Locator from Orion telescopes: Like the Lightbridge from Meade, the XT8 is a portable telescope for dark sky road trips. It also has a small computerized object locator that can save you a bunch of time locating faint sky targets. Search for it at www.telescope.com. It’s priced at $529.95.

One more VERY important thing. No matter what kind of telescope you get, let it sit outside for at least a half hour before you use it. The optics have to acclimate to local temperature, or your view of anything though the scope can be really messed up.

Happy shopping!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the book, “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.

The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members and puts on public star parties. The Web site is www.everettastro.org.