[bicyclerepair]

I got this telescope from freecycle. It’s a Jason 60x700. Can see saturn’s rings, but very frustrating to find and keep on target.

And yes, cheap telescopes are more hassle than they’re worth. Bring out the huge tripod, try and find something. Then keep moving it. Gets old fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKqXN-UFra8

[jboot]

Jason! I remember them fondly. My best friend had one circa 1980. 60x700 makes me lol, though. The highest useable power in a Jason 60mm was probably something like 90X. To get to 700X you'd need to stack a teeny little 1.5mm aperture eyepiece on the Barlow lens. At that point even the full moon would be dark as soot, assuming that you could line up your eye with the aperture! Eye relief would probably be measured in Angstroms. ;-) But if you stick with a lower-powered eyepeice you can see a lot.

If you want a quick MASSIVE upgrade that won't cost too much, get a hybrid diagonal and a modern 1.25" eyepeice like this one. Get one of these, too, just in case you need a bit more focal length. You will see a huge difference. Another cheap win is to set a 6' x 4" pipe in concrete so that 4' is above ground and affix the scope to that instead of the wobbly-azz tripod.