Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!oliveb!oliven!mjm
From: mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: telescopes
Message-ID: <33579@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 3 Dec 88 02:10:17 GMT
References: <7823@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
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In article <7823@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, e299-ao@sim.uucp (Brenda Baker) writes:
 > My Mother is trying to decide on a telescope to buy for bird watching.
 > We've looked at the Discoverer by Bausch and Lomb and were not very
 > impressed.  She has also looked at the Renaissance by Televue.  Does
 > any one have any comments on it or any other brands?

	One of the more popular brands of scope that I have seen is the
Bushnell Spacemaster II. It has a 60 mm objective lens and accommodates
screw-on eye pieces. I don't know if it comes with a standard eye piece
or if you have to purchase it separately. The most popular eye piece
seems to be the 25x, but the scope can be fitted with higher magnification
eye pieces or even a zoom lens. I own one of these and am quite happy
with it.

	There are other manufacturers who make functionally equivalent
scopes to the one above, including Celestron and Kowa. Kowa even makes
one with a 70 mm objective lens, for even brighter images. Some of the
Kowa model numbers are TSN2 and TSN4 (I think).

	Then again, if you're rich, you may want to consider a 3.5 inch
aperture Questar. It shouldn't run you more than about $4000. :-)

Good luck,

Mike