2020-10-18T13:38:30
Rated 5 out of 5
A Telescope You Will Use
This telescope package is one of those kind of deals that I felt I got more for my money than I expected. That’s always a good feeling. Included are the optical tube (telescope), mount, tripod, binocular, eyepiece, and a back pack to carry it all in.
The telescope performs just as a 102 mm, 459 mm focal length, fast f/4.5 achromatic refractor should. With the included 20 mm eyepiece the field of view is wide and bright. Magnification is 23 with the supplied eyepiece and I can discern Saturn’s ring though the planet is very tiny. Jupiter’s Galilean moons are sharp and easy to see. The entire Moon fits in the view and is very sharp. It can be bright enough to hurt your eyes though so an additional moon filter may be a good addition. Given the name, this telescope was design to suck in light from large but dim objects, like a comet. I didn’t have any comets to view but one evening in Bortle 4 skies away from my city I could see numerous nebula and star clusters. No color of course.
As expected with an achromatic lens (two lens refractor) there is some chromatic aberration but only on the brightest of objects, like the moon and Jupiter. This shows up as purple or green on the edges of of an object but I find that my eye/brain easily tunes it out. If you are going to take photos through this scope it may cause problems but it may help to either take them in black and white or purchase some addition eyepiece filters. I found that a green No. 58 really sharpens up Saturn under higher magnifications.
Stars are crisp and sharp for about 90% of the field of view. A good quality eyepiece is often defined as one that has a undistorted field of view of 80% or greater. The stainless steel tripod and metal azimuth/elevation mount are plenty sturdy that allows for a perfectly steady image about two seconds after positioning. The smooth movement of the mount makes it easy to manually track moving objects like satellites. There is no finder scope though there is a mount for one. Due to the wide field of view a finder scope is not really needed unless maybe you purchase additional high power eyepieces.
Included are two Allen wrenches to collimating the mirror at the rear. I haven’t seen a need to do that yet so I can’t say much about it. Though this is a refractor, it’s construction is unique in that it has a mirror at the back to reflect up into the eyepiece. This make for an extremely short telescope. Also, there are no instructions whatsoever. If you are not familiar with telescopes you may need a friend or the Internet to help you. That said, it is very obvious how it goes together. Be sure to check all of the backpack’s pocket, etc. for parts.
The 7 x 50 binoculars really bring in the light too but I find it hard to line my eye up to the oculars. The construction seems a bit cheesy but functional. The optics seems to be good if you can keep your eyes lined up to them. I consider them to be free ballast in the shipping box and for that they can’t be beat.
The backpack is of reasonable construction and will hold everything except the tripod legs, they strap to the side. The biggest plus of this telescope is that it can be easily transported, even on a hike, yet can be setup of put away in about 2 minutes.
It is often said that the best telescope is the one that you will use. This telescope will likely not just sit in your closet even if you have much larger ones to use on occasion. I’ve had it about a month now and have been using for about 80% of those nights. I certainly do not consider this to be the best telescope but it is another tool in my astronomy tool box.
STEPHEN Y.
2020-10-14T19:41:22
Rated 4 out of 5
Telescope
Great product. Enjoyed watching, full moon, stars and mars the other night. I know it was easy to assemble but we were looking for the manual and there us no manual included in the package. Does this set comes with a manual. Other than that we like it.
Thanks!
Dory A. Larsen
Dory L.
