Decent starter portable telescope (approx $500)

[Seayork2002]

I have been thinking of getting this on and off for years and a friend mentioned a while ago they got one for $250 I am presuming times have changed since they told me so was thinking we may need to go to $500 or so now

We have never had one before so need an easy to use one but it has to be portable

Any suggestions please?

I would like to stick to buying in Australia if possible

[LunaFreya]

A good suggestion is to see if you can mount a phone to it as that’s the best way to get photos and to help kids look into it.

[Hills Mum Bec]

We have this telescope:
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au ... telescope/

Currently over $1,100 but we got ours when it was half price a few years ago (when the Australian Geographic stores were closing down). It connects to an app on your phone where you can select on the app what you want to view and the telescope will automatically locate it.

You could get something like this:
https://www.diamondscamera.com.au/celes ... -telescope
It's similar to ours but you do have to find things manually but will tell you on the app what you are looking for and help you to locate things. We have purchased stuff from Diamonds before and there service is excellent.

[Seayork2002]

Thanks PPs one thing I should mention is we are planning to take it to Broken Hill and going out and about there with it so we will have our phones with us so great for photos but not sure on internet coverage when we are using it (if this is relevant info that is)

[squeekums-the-elf]

https://www.anacondastores.com/camping- ... e/90165623

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au ... -backpack/ though currently out of stock, more as an average price guide or if you can find them in stock somewhere

[Bad Cat]

You can get great photos with a cheap rig because you can leave the shutter open for a long exposure thus collecting more light. But looking through it yourself is less satisfying because your eyes can't do what a camera does obviously. So it really depends what you want to do with it.

I'd recommend having look at this video to check your expectations regarding what you'll be able to see with your own eyes through it. The scope used in this video is a 100mm so quite a bit bigger than the one's Sqeekums linked to. Planets will generally be quite small in your field of view with a small scope.

Your best bet is to speak with someone at a specialist scope store about what you want to use it for and let them guide you.