With Stars In My Eyes

I walked into London Drugs to pick up cough medicine. I walked out with a telescope. Yep, it was one of those days.

We had decided to wander through the camera section, and when the salesman asked if we needed any help, I asked out of curiosity if they carried any telescopes. I've been watching BBC's 'Wonders of the Solar System' and was suitably inspired to price out the equipment, but as I currently have a telescope in two pieces under my bed, I wasn't looking to buy anything. Ideally I just wanted to know if this place had options -- there aren't a lot of specialty science-themed stores in this area.

The salesman looked sad, almost rueful. "No," he confided with a shake of the head, "We don't. Maybe closer to Christmas we might get something in but.... No." Then, with an apologetic shrug, he added, "We do have one, but it's really a children's toy, really...."

I followed, but I was being a bit snobby and inwardly scoffing that he'd show me a TOY when I'd asked for a telescope! By the final frontier, man, this is SCIENCE!

He led me to a shelf (not a glass cabinet, but a shelf!) and a small, watermelon-sized cardboard box (a box!) and said, "This is it. Last one left." The price was $25. I thanked him (because even though I was internally scoffing, I try to be externally polite) and he returned to the front of the store.

A measly 25 buck kid's toy, probably made of plastic, too weak to view the moon, too wimpy to -- wait a second.

Under the price tag was a second price tag, for $89.99.

I picked up the box, looked it over, then opened it up and glanced at the telescope inside. It's a Celestron FirstScope, designed to be portable and durable, and charged with the noble goal of introducing children to astronomy.

By the rings of Saturn, this is one amazing little telescope! We brought it home, set it up in seconds (it comes assembled, bonus!) and spent the evening admiring the moons of Jupiter. It came with two lenses: 15x and 75x, which offered a perfect introduction to the universe for Little Z, and it also took the lenses of our other telescope, giving us a little flexibility. All in all, the FirstScope is just as crisp, clear and powerful as my larger telescope, but it has the distinct advantage of being a snap to use, carry and store. We've already decided to take this telescope with us on our next holiday -- that's how amazingly portable it is. In fact, it's lighter than my purse.

Ignore the people in the promo pictures; I wouldn't trust a group who looks so deliriously happy about peering through a telescope when it is so obviously daytime. However, with clear midnight skies above us, we were all thrilled by the FirstScope. It was a spectacular purchase, and if you live near a London Drugs that happens to have one on sale, I would highly, highly recommend you rush out and snap it up before it's gone.