How old is your son though? A good telescope costs a tidy sum – think in the $200-300 region and needs some aptitude to use effectively. I would avoid the small refractors frequently sold by catalogues and general retailers – they are uniformly rubbish. If you don't want to spend that much there is the Gallileoscope at http://www.gallileoscope.org which is humble but reasonable quality and good value for money.

There are a few other sub $100 scopes out there that may be worth bothering with for some users (children) but do not think for a moment they are going to be good quality scopes capable of revealing a broad variety of objects. Magnification is not usually the limiting factor as much as aperture – how much light the telescope can collect. Any telescope can magnify as much as you want with different eyepieces, but aperture is something you are stuck with for the life of the scope.

The planets are usually straightforward with even a basic scope provided it is of reasonable quality and the mount reasonable sturdy – the problems come when you want to look at galaxies and nebulae, and that is when you need a much more capable scope.

Using American soldiers for domestic law enforcement purposes would have been unprecedented. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the armed forces from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.””