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I want to get my young son a telescope for Christmas. I don',t want to get a toy but I don',t want something above his level either. What is the best magnification I can get to be able to see clear details of the moon but not overly fragile or in depth equipment? What also is the best magnification to see some details of Saturn or Jupiter too?



TIA.

Typically at around 80x the Moon will fill the field of view through the telescope. Going higher than that will show more details but you won't be able to see the whole Moon now. To see details on Saturn or Jupiter really needs more magnification it the 150x territory or higher, but Saturn',s rings when they're favourably orientated, which they'll not be for the next several years and some details on Jupiter are observable as low as 40x.



How old is your son though? A good telescope costs a tidy sum think in the $200300 region and needs some aptitude to use effectively. I could avoid the small refractors usually sold by catalogues and general merchants they're uniformly nonsense. If you don',t want to use up that much there's the Gallileoscope at gallileoscopethe which is humble but reasonable quality and good value for money.



There are some other sub $100 scopes out there that can be worth bothering with for some users kids but don't think for a moment they're going to be good quality scopes able of revealing a broad range of objects. Magnification isn't typically the limiting factor as much as aperture how much light the telescope can gather. Any telescope can magnify as much as you want with different eyepieces, but aperture is something you're stuck with for the life of the scope.



The planets are typically straightforward with a basic scope provided it's of reasonable quality and the mount reasonable tough the problems come when you want to look at galaxies and nebulae, and that's when you need a more able scope.

Any magnification will show lots of detail on the moon, lowpower binoculars. you may be able to see the moons of Jupiter at 10x or and the rings of Saturn at 30x, but 150x to 300x are more common magnifications for looking at planets.



That said, don',t purchase a telescope depending on magnification. Telescopes advertised on the base of magnification are cheap toys being promoted to people who know nothing about telescopes. The important specification for a telescope is its aperture more is better. you may be able to get any magnification you want with the proper eyepieces, but small telescopes can',t take much magnification without becoming dim and blurry.



Check out Orion Telescopes telescope.com/ for some good beginner scopes, as well as some number of wellsuited for kids.

Remember that any telescope will supply any magnification based on which eyepiece you put into the end of it. So purchasing a telescope depending on magnification really doesn',t seem right. In fact, any telescope that advertises depending on magnification should be studiously evaded. ADDED: For what it',s worth, I enjoy observing lunar details at 126x .



I don't know how much you're wanting to use up, nor how young your son is. Most telescopes that are available for under $200 are toys and not respectable of the name. The lowest priced scope that's a decent instrument is most likely the 4.5 in. Orion Starblast shown here:



telescope.com/control/product





This is a pretty good choice for kids. it'll show good detail on the Moon, also as the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. He may also seem some bright star clusters, nebulae, and a couple of galaxies. it's easy to use, but he'll need some star charts also to find things. I could recommend the book "Nightwatch" by T. Dickinson or "Turn Left at Orion" by G. Consolmagno.