Tom,

There are two sites that will be helpful; they are discussion groups of amateur astronomoers. One is "sci.astro.amateur" and the other is "uk.sci.astronomy". Both can be reached in two ways:

If you have WINDOWS with OUTLOOK EXPRESS, you can enter them through the "news groups" which is included with OUTLOOK EXPRESS and subscribe to both of them. Another avenue is through www.deja.com/. Just type "telescope" in the "search" box and they will appear.

Another possible site for finding appraisals of many telescopes (also eyepieces, binoculars and vendors) is www.excelsis.com/. You may come across telescopes other than TAL that you may want to consider. One respondent in the TAL 1K
reviews gave a bad review but everyone else in the reviews rated it highly. If you have any questions please send a note; I will be glad to help you. TAL is the largest Russian optics company that formerly made optics for the Soviet military. Of course, you get what you pay for but in the economy line, TAL has a good reputation. There are also several good American companies that carry low price lines: Orion is well regarded (it has a US web site; I don't know if it is the same as the British Orion), Celestron and Meade.

Hope this helps,

Clear skies,

Alden Peterson
Madison Wisconsin
petersons@myexcel.com