Major toymaker Bandai yesterday announced the Hyper Telescope [JP], which is being marketed as a “science toy” for kids. It’s the ideal gadget if you want your kid to become an astronomer, as it allows users to observe the sky and view relevant information on connected displays or within the device itself. All that needs to be done is to specify one’s location on earth and the current time.

Users can then move the telescope around, pointing it to a spot on the star map they want to know more about. The LCD within the device, which features three joints and an accelerometer, will then display the corresponding information on a “virtual” star map (see below for an example). Others can view what is being displayed if the telescope is connected to a TV, for example.

Bandai has built 20 background melodies and data (stats, pictures, etc.) on about 300 stars and similar objects into the Hyper Telescope. Over a thousand of those objects can be identified.

Bandai’s Hyper Telescope weighs 600g, is battery-powered and will carry a price tag of $200 when it will arrive in Japanese stores on May 29. It’s hasn’t been announced for other markets but could find its way outside Japan soon, too.

By Shane McGlaun

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid right until the point where I found out that you really needed to be in the military for a shot. The thought of getting ordered around was more than my 8-year-old brain could take so I settled for a telescope.

My old telescope was just about impossible to use. Meade has a new scope that will turn anyone into an astronomy buff called the ETX-LS. The telescope is fully automated and will set itself using GPS and other technologies and take users on a tour of the night sky.

The automated technology is called LightSwitch, determines the location, time, and date of the telescope, compiles a real-time map of the night sky for your location, and then takes you on a guided tour with audio thanks to Astronomer-inside tech. The telescope sells for $1299 with SC optics or $1499 with ACF optics.

[ Meade ]

Derrick Pitts, lead astronomer at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, talks about the telescope used in the Bloom Observatory. The 10-inch refractor telescope has been around since 1934, and was built by Carl Zeiss Jena and shipped over from Germany.

Here’s more from the Franklin Institute’s web site:

The original observatory, opened in 1934, had two telescopes. The 10-inch, f/15 refractor, built by Carl Zeiss Jena, employed the latest optical and engineering techniques available in pre-World War II Germany. The 24-inch reflector telescope, manufactured by J.W. Fecker of Pittsburgh, was a convertible Newtonian/Cassegrain instrument with focal ratios of 14.4 and 7, respectively. The reflector was used for deep-sky observations, including the first recovery sighting of Comet Halley in the fall of 1985. City light pollution eventually rendered it ineffective, and the scope was moved to the Institute’s Space Command exhibit.
Bloom Observatory was renovated in 2006. Nationally-recognized telescope mechanic, Christopher Ray, of Ray Museum Studios and a professor of Mechanical Engineering from Swarthmore College, completely rebuilt the Zeiss refractor, upgrading it with modern PC-controlled DC-servo drives to achieve GO-TO pointing accuracy of better than 0.2 arc-seconds on both axes. The upgrade enables visitors to see not only the only the usual, but also thousands of faint objects (down to about magnitude 13)–despite high levels of ambient light pollution.

Joel N Bloom Observatory [FI.edu]