Hello Friend,

Yesterday I wrote about giving a kid, a well intentioned (but faulty) pair of binoculars as a
gift to get them interested in amateur astronomy.

And,after what seemed like a weekend of blissful mild weather, with nary a sight of Winter,
all of a sudden chilling artic winds returned to Toronto last night, and so it was the perfect
evening to stay inside.

Of course, it was clear last night  but hey, I'm nobodies fool when it comes to wanting to be frozen over
like that Computer programmer character in the James Bond movie ,Goldeneye called Boris, who shouted "I am invincible!"
right up to the part where a Vat of liquid nitrogen froze him over.

That's a great movie to watch on a frickin' cold night! (Which I did, of course).

And right after that, I started to read  a new book by astronomy author and writer  Bob Berman
called "Zoom: how everything moves, from atoms and galaxies and blizzards and bees".

I recommend it.

And it was on page 21 into the book,  where Berman is interviewing 38 year old Dan Kelson, a brilliant
researcher at Las Campanas observatory in Chile.

In fact, Kelson had helped pioneer the technique of cutting thougsand of precisely positioned slits into a metal
plate, so that a particular group of galaxies could be analyzed.

Here's what else Kelson said:

|"When I was seven or eight my grandparents got me a refracting telescope from Sears.  I studied the lore of each
constellation. I read every astronomy book in my elementary school's library".

Now, just so you know the quality of basic telescopes many years ago, was actually substantially better than
most of the department store junk in the marketplace today.

Now, imagine if he was given a pair of binoculars by his grandparents.

Do you really think it would have the same impact?

I certainly don't think so.

And there lies the proof in the pudding.

Nuff said, Friend.

Clear Skies,

Ray Khan

PS If you want a decent introductory telescope for a child, we have several, but here is a particuarly good one
     at a reasonable price, and on sale.

(http://khanscope.com/productdetails.cfm?productID=5573)