Sorry if this sounds like spam. I just think it's a really cool educational program that deserves some promotion since it's been a volunteer effort dedicated to low-cost education.
I just ordered a nice, basic telescope for $15. Anyone can.
The Galileoscope™ is a joint effort of the International Astronomical Union's Galileoscope task group and the American Astronomical Society's Telescope Kits & Optics Challenges working group, with educational support from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Dozens of team members have devoted thousands of hours to the project, almost entirely on a volunteer basis, since its inception in 2006.
This telescope is not the greatest in the world. It's cheap and it isn't very powerful, but it is still better than the telescope used by Galileo himself to discover the moons of Jupiter. They are selling it to individuals for $15 and in bulk to schools for less.
The telescopes come as a kit, so you will learn about how they are put together and how optics work and other educational material has been provided. On top of this, it is designed to use standard eyepieces, so you can add all sorts of accessories from camera mounts to filters.
Some more detailed specs from the website-
The Galileoscope comes as a kit with simple instructions for no-tools assembly in 5 minutes or less. Its achromatic optics include a 50-mm-diameter objective lens of focal length 500 mm, an eyepiece of focal length 20 mm (magnification 25x), and a 2x Barlow lens (yielding 50x when used with the supplied eyepiece). The Galileoscope accepts almost any optical accessory that has a standard 1¼-inch (31¾-mm) barrel, and it attaches to virtually every tripod made or distributed anywhere in the world. (A tripod is not included with the kit; you'll have to supply your own.) You get all this for just US$15 each plus shipping, or US$12.50 each plus shipping for orders of 100 or more.
Here's a video of the moon using the telescope:
Here is the kit:
https://www.galileoscope.org/...