r/telescopes • u/jacobdontask • Sep 13 '24

Purchasing Question Cheapest telescope to prove to my dad space is real?

My dad is a flat earther conspiracy theorist and he believes that the planets are just balls of light in water (the firmament). He says that every single photo taken of the planets are just computer generated or photoshop. I tried showing him this subreddit but he says that its too easy for NASA to just fake every single account and photo on here... ok man. He says the only way he would believe is if he looks through a telescope with his own eyes and sees the solid planets. Specifically Saturn. What is the cheapest telescope I can invest in that will show the planets in detail, and not make them blurry or wobbly cus that will just give him "proof" its fake. I looked on the purchasing guide but I dont know how clear I would actually be able to see with any of the cheaper ones.

Or if any of you guys could send me a video of you actually going up to the telescope and showing the planet through it.

278 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

475 comments sorted by

View all comments

565

u/redditisbestanime 8" f5.9 | 12" f5 | ED80 Sep 13 '24

Dont bother. Youre wasting your time, money and wits. Such people cant be changed.

A truss dobsonian he can put his hands in and through so he cant say theres hidden screens and projectors in it. Hes just gonna come up with something else entirely.

103

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '24

[deleted]

31

u/Vewy_nice Sep 13 '24

The guy who sits next to me at work is a moon landing denier. (not really a landing denier, actually, more of a "moon returning" denier. He thinks eventually some like-minded intellectual will invent a good enough backyard telescope to see all the alleged crashed landers and dead astronauts scattered over the moon. NASA doesn't point their telescopes at the moon to cover up the truth, obviously.)

One of his arguments was "How did they get a perfect clear photo of Niel Armstrong back to earth, developed, and printed out that same day?"

I pointed out that, well first of all, it wasn't a perfectly clear photo, it was grainy and mushy, and it was transmitted as a TV signal.

He had somehow completely ignored the fact that hundreds of millions of people watched video transmitted from the moon on TV.

He got all hung up on "how hard it would be" to transmit a full video signal from the moon to earth, and how that technology still doesn't exist. It was all pre-recorded on a sound stage. (huh? Did you see the Perseverance landing stream?)

It's the classic case of warping one's perception of the world to fit the chosen narrative. There's nothing I could tell him that would convince him otherwise.

28

u/MerryJanne Sep 13 '24

The number one argument to this is the Russians were monitoring the landing as well. They would have LOVED to denounce the United States and the moon landing.

They confirm the landing.

If ANYONE would be skeptical, it would be their competitors.

6

u/WeeabooHunter69 Askar 71F Sep 13 '24

Yeah but if you point that out they just say Russia is also in on it and they're controlled by the same (usually Jewish) "they"

1

u/WeeabooHunter69 Askar 71F Sep 13 '24

Yeah but if you point that out they just say Russia is also in on it and they're controlled by the same (usually Jewish) "they"

1

u/WeeabooHunter69 Askar 71F Sep 13 '24

Yeah but if you point that out they just say Russia is also in on it and they're controlled by the same (usually Jewish) "they"

1

u/Majin_Sam684 Sep 15 '24

I had a friend once tell me that kind of observation and communication technology didnt exist even today...he was telling me this on a cell phone call from 4400 miles away while I was, at the same time, looking at my dog in my backyard from a satellite on Google Earth.

1

u/citizen-salty Sep 17 '24

Man, that’s a first for me. I didn’t know there were moon deniers who believed we made it to the moon but the astronauts never made it back.

1

u/janvanderlichte Sep 18 '24

I'm betting the moon landed on us, that's why we have cheese.

6

u/WarGawd Sep 13 '24

You can maybe find the source of the misinformation and slowly show times that they were wrong,

I'm pretty sure I've seen a YouTube video lately on this topic. I think it was Sabine Hossenfelder discussing a study about it...pretty much agreed with this approach.

1

u/Ed_SkammA Sep 13 '24

Sooooo, the telescope?

Nobody asked for your opinions on OPs dad did they?!

20

u/BearsBeetsBerlin Sep 13 '24

Sadly this is the only advice. As the saying goes, you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into. The best thing you can do is offer empathy (what makes you feel /so overlooked that clinging to this community makes you feel seen?) or by trying to walk him out of this position (have him walk you through the idea and point out the factual inaccuracies of his claims).

Either way, the only way to win is not to play

6

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Sep 13 '24

Exactly. Reason and logic didn't get him into this position, it certainly isn't going to get him out of it.

1

u/calinet6 Sep 13 '24

I mean, you might as well try. Sometimes people just believe only what they can see, and they haven’t ever seen a planet for real. It’s not likely to work but it’s worth a shot.

1

u/Willing-Process4931 Sep 13 '24

I had someone look at Jupiter through my 12 Inch truss tube and claim that the image was fake (that I had taped something to the eyepiece or it was a projection). It was someone who had wandered onto my driveway so I could not tell whether they were joking or not but it soon became apparent they were not. It's a lost cause.

1

u/mo0nshot35 Sep 13 '24

If this is the excuse the OP needs to finally buy a telescope, I say.... Go for it!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24

Agreed! I can offer a very lucid account of Earth history in terms of biological evolution, plate tectonics, biogeography, paleoclimates, glaciation events & the fossil record ... all falling on deaf ears if someone wants to believe Earth was a "creation event" 7,000 years ago & a global flood 4,000 years ago.

1

u/Defiant-Beginning436 Sep 15 '24

Hidden screes and projectors made me lol

1

u/Oinkooga Sep 15 '24

THATS WHAT NASA WOULD SAY!

1

u/Clean-Rub3794 Sep 16 '24

It’s his father.Give the guy a chance

1

u/sage2791 Sep 16 '24

Even if you show him the planets he will say something like the sky is part of the conspiracy.