Portable Telescopes for Birdwatching

Video Transcript

"Using a telescope can be a lot of fun. And, if you get into amateur astronomy in any depth at all, you'll probably wind up with a pretty big telescope, something eight to ten inches, maybe even larger. They're getting more affordable, more sophisticated these days. There's always a time that you're going to take a trip to the beach, or you're going to want to do maybe some bird spotting in the backyard, or you just don't want to lug out the big guy, the big gun. And it's nice to have a small, portable telescope we call a "Grab and Go." This is a little eighty millimeter refractor. It's got a tripod mounting block on the back. I can sit it up on a lightweight photo tripod, bring this up in a minute or two. In fact, I can carry the whole thing in one hand from indoors to outdoors with no problems. It cools down real quick. You can use it immediately, enjoy the night sky, and then go back in the house to hit the World Series, if that's what your heart desires."