They say that you never forget your first. I certainly won't. Since 1973, I had owned a pair of K-Mart 7x35 binoculars, my first astronomical instrument. They served me well (and in fact still do, three decades later). But I wanted a real telescope. As an adolescent, there was no way I could afford what I really wanted; a 6"/150mm Newtonian on an equatorial mount. At least I could dream.
When I graduated high school in 1981, my friend Scott Spooner and I ended up over my friend Scott Moots' house one night after a party. He had to go back to his bedroom for something, and we just tagged along, carrying on a conversation (probably about my fixation on the Electric Light Orchestra). In his room, I noticed a telescope tucked into the closet. Just a small one. I asked Moots about it, and he responded, "oh, yeah, it's yours!"
And with that, I became the owner of a Tasco 50mm telescope.
It wasn't great. The biggest problem was really the tripod... what there was of it. It was a table-top tripod, not good for anything really. I had a spare camera tripod, so I modified the little telescope to fit on that. It had two eyepieces, a 20mm and what I think was a 5mm... that got tossed in no time, as it was unbearable. The diagonal was the old standard .965", so there were still some additional eyepieces I could get. Instead, I chose to stick mainly to the 20mm.
My first night with it was memorable. I chose to watch Saturn. With a 20mm eyepiece in a telescope that had a focal length of 600mm, I knew that I'd be looking at only 30x. Still, I was startled. Even at that low power, it was clear that Saturn had rings. I was hooked big time.
I followed that scope with a 70mm, which served me well. But the 50mm was used quite a bit for the next decade. In fact, it outlived the 70mm, as I sold it when I found myself penniless in 1987. Sometime in 1991, the 50mm finally gave up the ghost and was disposed of; it had been dropped and the objective broke.
Still, it was that small scope that gave me my first steady views of the heavens. I'm an advocate of small telescopes. My smallest telescope, "Lil' Bernie", is 57mm, though I do have a classic three draw 35mm, "Hans", that I use for some experimentation (it is optically a nice little scope). Small telescopes have advantages, namely in portability and costs. I've heard it said often that once you graduate from binoculars and want a larger instrument, you should really save up and buy something with a minimum of a 4"/100mm aperture. That's good advice, but for some, that outlay might still be used elsewhere in their lives (for, say, food, clothing and shelter). Small telescopes, 3"/76mm and down, might be a better alternative for them. It's just important that they are steered towards good manufacturers.
The 50mm has gotten scarce these days, being replaced by the 60mm. Tonight, though, I spent half an hour looking on eBay for 50mm telescopes (there are a number of new manufacturers putting them out, but I tend to gravitate towards names I recognize). Nowhere did I see the familiar white tube that marked the Tasco telescopes of that period. I hope one day to replace that scope. I might have instruments many times larger and far more capable. But you never really forget your first. Besides, I can probably find a way to justify it.
ADDENDUM -
Just discovered a review of the same telescope at "Cloudy Nights",
"Tasco Model 6TE-5 50 mm Refractor". Yes, that was my telescope!
