My First Telescope

 The instrument which I chose to begin astronomical observation was purchased at J.C. Penney.

There is no other brand name on it - only a tag stating that it was of Japanese manufacture.

The telescope is equipped with a 60mm (2.4") coated objective lens at 700mm (27.6") focal length.

Like all small department store telescopes of the day, this one is situated on an altazimuth mount with an adjustable wood tripod.  Surprisingly, the mount is very sturdy and introduces no wobble to the instrument, which is very beneficial to doing any type of observing.

The scope came with two ocular eyepieces, a 12.5mm and a 6mm, yielding magnifications of 56x and 117x, respectively.  These are both cheaper Huygenian type eyepieces, which are also typical of department store offerings.  I rarely, if ever, used the 6mm eyepiece because it is too much magnification for the size of the objective lens, plus the lesser quality produces less-than-ideal images.

My astronomy mentor, Don DeKarske, suggested that I purchase a couple more higher quality oculars.

After a trip to the local camera store, I came home with a new 25mm Kellner eyepiece and a 7mm Orthoscopic, giving magnifications of 28x and 100x.  The 25mm piece gives 'gosh-wow' wide field views, while the 7mm works very well for planetary detail and splitting double stars. 

Between the quality objective lens and oculars, there were virtually no chromatic aberration issues.

Upon trying out the telescope during our next observing outing, Don informed me that I indeed had one of the best 60mm telescope systems he has seen. 

The telescope also came with a few accessories:  a 2x Barlow lens, an image inverter, and a right-angle prism.  Again, I rarely used any of these features because of the introduction of additional lenses or mirrors that would unnecessarily absorb light.

Lastly, the telescope came with a moon filter. 

I found the small 5x finder scope to be quite useless, so I removed it from the main tube.  Instead, I became adept at finding celestial objects using the 25mm ocular on the main scope, then switching to higher powers if needed.

Another must-have I needed to purchase was something to replace the old dog-eared National Geographic Celestial map.  A new copy of Wil Tirion's Sky Atlas 2000 did the job...

Armed with all of this equipment, I was ready to tackle the heavens !

I still have this telescope and Sky Atlas.  Perhaps I'll just have to step outside on the next clear evening and do me some casual stargazing.