I purchased a ZWO Seestar S50 a couple of years ago just to see what could be done with inexpensive, automated scopes. There is no eyepiece and it only takes images that you can see on a phone or tablet. It’s dead simple to use – just place it outdoors on a table or level tripod and press the power button. It’s not going to produce the quality of image of my big 12.5 inch scope, but it’s a great gift idea for a teenager interested in astronomy. It does a good job on nebulae and galaxies and even has a built in mosaic mode to take pictures of large objects like the Andromeda galaxy (M31). This is just an hour of exposure from last night. Ideally you would want to take several hours to bring out the colors and vibrancy of deep sky objects.
M31 is about 2.5 million light years away from us. It’s a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way and of similar size. It has two large companion galaxies; M32 below and M110 above,
There are many other options for entry level scopes for kids of all ages and adults too. I will be posting some other astronomical gift suggestions in the coming week as it’s a frequent question I get this time of year.
