I'm after a telescope for my lad around £100 pounds mostly for looking at the moon and so on.

Is there anything at that price worth having or as I fear are they all a bit pants.

Overall £100 will be fairly poor /not really worth buying – think of a £100 MTB for example it would work but only just. You require large aperture size, and quality lenses, [not magnification] large field of view. Newtonians are cheaper but [unless automatic] you have the issue of tracking stars as they move. Newtonian ones are generally cheaper.
At that price new most people would recommend a good set of binoculars for someone just getting started. No way I would buy any telescope new at that price just not worth it.

DO NOT BUY A £100 TELESCOPE!

Useless tat. Buy a good set of 10*50 Binoculars, a star map and some good gloves. 10*70s if your son can handle the weight for longish periods.

I am an amateur observer, please take my advice. I've seen sooooo may people ignore it because the telescope is cooler.

They are rubbish!

Exactly what Daffy said. I've got an Opticron spotting scope which is, well, ok for looking at the moon & that was £600, but it's a terrestrial scope for bird/wildlife watching. You need a proper astronomical scope for starry stuff. Don't waste £100.

According to various sources, Gary Klein now makes telescopes!
Imagine that, oversize telescopes with beautiful iridescent paintwork!
No doubt Trek will buy him out and kill them off 👿

I have an old cheap astronomical telescope – and I was amazed what you can see – craters and shadows on the moon, Jupiters moons, saturns rings. can you really get that from a large good pair of binoculars? Mine really is the equivalent of a £100 telescope.

Yup, A good set of binos has far better optics than a cheap Newtonian telescope. A 10*70 has a similar mag, but far smaller focal length.

I bought my 7 year old one for moon gazing etc….

Very impressed!

Didn't want to spend a fortune on something he won't be using all the time and may get bored off…

This one…
Telescope

Check out one of these:

http://www.ukoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-infinity76p-childrens-telescope-p-1076.html

It's a bit cheaper than £100 but it's simple, robust, stable and has half decent optics. I've got one to take away camping and it's actually pretty good. With my 6 year old we've seen moons of Jupiter, the moon, Venus, and loads of terrestrial stuff. Theres a few options available, make sure the inverting lens is included.

It's stability, low(ish) magnification and large aperture makes it so much better than any of the other 'kids' scopes on the market. I've actually seen enthusiasts with 5k of kit + one of these in the car as it's quick, easy and works….

Taken with £6700 worth of Fluorite refractor, DSLR, ad image editing software:

Taken with a set of 10*73 Binos, a stand and combiner:

Thats bringing a gun to a snowball fight! very good pics however.

Can you explain something to me. With my cheapo scope I cannot see the whole of the moon at once – around a quarter of it – does that not mean higher magnification than the binos?

If you can don't spend £100 but save a bit more and get a Meade ETX 2nd hand from eBay – I've had mine for years and it's a great bit of kit.

If not get the binocs.

TJ – Yes. Your scope has a higher mag than my binos, but you've also got to take into account that both shots are taken from a light saturated city centre. Too much magnification is often worse than too little, the image will distort or contrast will be lost due to atmospheric interference and the effect will be far more accute at higher mag.

To view the full moon you need a lower mag eyepiece and a moon filter like an ND25 or ND50. I'm assuming the eyepiece you have is something in the 15-20mm range? Something around 32mm would be best.

I know that sounds backward, but trust me. Lower mag = bigger eyepiece.

Additionally, Try not to view a full moon. The contrast attained by viewing a half or quarter moon measurably improves the visibility of surface features. The first shot above is actually a composite of 2* 3/5th moon images, thats why so much detail is visible.

If you do buy a Meade, buy the 125. It has far better electronics/optics and almost 2* the light gathering capacity over the 90.

Ta

So on a planet I see a bigger but dimmer and more distorted image?

I can't quite get my head around focal lengths and stuff

The first time you see a planet with your own eyes is truely magical

How long will it take before he ends up spying on the neighbours then ? – a week, a day, or just a few mins ?

Good info though, Id like a good telescope.

I was debating getting back into stargazing after a long absence (15 years ago I couldnt even afford a decent pair of binoculars).

I found the forum at Stargazers Lounge to be very useful for information. Might be worth heading over there and reading through some posts as a lot of folks write their own reviews there. They also link to a online shop (UK based) which I believe gives a little discount to forum members.

Worth a look.

I'd also support getting second hand rather than a £100 Argos beast. Having said that I would imagine that the Skywatcher above is pretty good value for the money.

Astronomers generally look after their kit extremely well. Another good place to look would be http://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/

Failing that, some bins at 10×50 or 15×70 perhaps with a camera tripod.

Thanks for all the advice I have discovered a Telescope shop in Dorking and am going up there on Sat. Will also take a look at that web site.

Is there anything that can be done about light pollution it's not dreadful here but it's not great either.

go somewhere darker?

I have the advantage of living somewhere that only has 3 streetlights but I know the local astronomy group uses the school playing field for their star parties.

maybe try a local park or school field (assuming its not fenced off)

You can use a light pollution filter which cuts the emmisions of streetlighting from the field of vision.

hire a telescope… 🙂 this is my first shot taken remotely, of a rather predictable target. Haven't got the hang of the processing software, but it's still given me a real thrill.