Friday, December 14, 2012

Compact Ranger 30x30 telescope



This is my very first telescope that I got for Christmas when I was nine years old.
When I was at primary school one of my friends was Steve McGuffie. He was in my class and new lots of facts about astronomy. I remember that he told me that the Sun was 93,000,000 miles away. He had a lovely little telescope with proper glass lens' and had a magnification of 30x30. I was amazed when I looked through it and how clear everything was. I asked my father to buy me one for Christmas and was sooo pleased when on Christmas morning I had one just like the one that Steve had with proper tripod and case.
I loved it and use it lots of times looking at the Moon, Venus and Jupiter from my bedroom window. It was a wonderful instrument!
Then, one clear night, I set up my telescope to look at Venus from my bedroom window. It was quite tricky to see it, so I had to balance the scope onto the edge of the windowsill. I was so determined to see Venus that I knocked the scope over and it fell out of the window with a crash to the concrete floor below.
The primary lens was smashed! I was so upset that I cried, it would never work again. I kept it for quite a while, hoping that maybe I would be able to find another lens. As well as the lens, the metal thread also got damaged and kept falling out. Such a shame...a lovely telescope!

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