( 2 reviews )
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Posted: Mar 25 2008
Lets face it, telescopes of this type are really only useful for observing the moon, Jupiter and Saturn...and a few of the brighter deep space objects like the Orion Nebula. My son and I had a good time looking at Saturn last night. You can definately see the ring!
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( 3 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jan 7 2007
This is not really the best way to get started in astronomy. To their credit, the marketer has avoided the ridiculous magnification claims that plague so many similarly sized scopes on the market. Also to their credit, the marketer has provided a reflex "red dot" finder in place of the useless 5x24 finders that plague so many similar scopes. Even so, what you can expect to see in a scope of this size is rather limited. Some star clusters will be visible, but galaxies and nebulae will be very dim. You can see about as much with a pair of 10x50 binoculars. In a way, it is hard to fault Orion for marketing this scope. Their upper-tier instruments are quite good, but the big money appears to be made on low-end scopes like this. In one sense the sale of these scopes subsidizes their good models. Understand that using an astronomical telescope is not like playing an MP3 file and but rather like playing a guitar. It is a learned skill. You must do a lot of homework before you buy a telescope. Buying without prior experience is like buying a car without knowing anything about driving. If you want to see the wonders of the sky, contact your local astronomy club and attend one of their star parties. The members love sharing their hobby and can set you straight as to how to get started. The best way is to learn the sky with the unaided eye and 10x50 binoculars (decent ones are available on Amazon), then graduate to something along the lines of a 150-200mm (6-8") Dobsonian; good ones can be found on Amazon starting under $290. For more information on buying telescopes, see my encyclopedic guide on Amazon: "So you want to buy a telescope."
