Cheap telescope for International Year of Astronomy

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The Galileoscope™ is a high-quality, low-cost telescope kit developed for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 by a team of leading astronomers, optical engineers, and science educators.

The Galileoscope comes as a kit with simple instructions for no-tools assembly in 5 minutes or less. Its achromatic optics include a 50-mm-diameter objective lens of focal length 500 mm, an eyepiece of focal length 20 mm (magnification 25x), and a 2x Barlow lens (yielding 50x when used with the supplied eyepiece). The Galileoscope accepts almost any optical accessory that has a standard 1¼-inch (31¾-mm) barrel, and it attaches to virtually every tripod made or distributed anywhere in the world. (A tripod is not included with the kit; you'll have to supply your own.) You get all this for just U.S. $15 each plus shipping, or U.S. $12.50 each plus shipping for orders of 100 or more.

The Galileoscope is augmented with educational activities and related materials for use by classroom teachers, planetarium presenters, astronomy-club members, and anyone else eager to share the treats of the telescopic sky with others. These materials have been developed in English, but they are freely available for translation into other languages.