For around fifty quid this is a decent little travel ‘scope. The main tube is aluminium, the objective lens is an air spaced doublet, and its dual photo-tripod / dovetail mount will also allow it to fit on a proper astronomical equatorial mounting. Throw in a backpack, a couple of eyepieces, an erecting prism and a tripod and you have an excellent value package.The bundled eyepieces are considerably better than expected for the money and give x40 and x20 magnifications (10mm and 20mm respectively). The rack & pinion focuser and the objective lens mount unfortunately are both made of plastic. The tripod is wobbly when the legs are extended and the pan/tilt head is not the smoothest I’ve seen - but it is better than nothing and you can always buy a decent photographic tripod or even a proper equatorial mount later. The optics of this package may not be perfect but they are fine for direct visual use - offering sharp detail, low colour fringing and fairly wide flat-field views. Whilst perfectly usable as a spotter, you should note that the 'scope is not weather-proof.I bought this on a whim – interested to see whether it might be usable as a telephoto lens. Where else are you going to find a new 400mm f5.7 lens for this money? Out of the box, the ‘scope seems reasonably sturdy (tripod excepted). For direct visual use, the image quality it offers is very respectable and much better than any of the half-dozen sub £100 spotters that I have to hand. As a telephoto lens, however, it suffers from low contrast due to internal light scatter from the side-walls, a lack of ultimate sharpness from optical misalignment, evident edge of frame focus-softening (due to field curvature) when using large sensors (APS-C or larger), and of course, from the curse of all refractors: chromatic aberration.Here’s a quick dissection of the product - as delivered …T-MountThe handbook doesn’t even bother to mention it – but the outside of the eyepiece holder is threaded. If you have a T-mount adapter for your camera then you can mount your dslr etc directly on the back of the ‘scope for prime focus photography.Rotatable eyepiece mountThe eyepiece mount is a screw-fit onto the chromed focuser tube (both are plastic, sadly) and has an associated locking collar – together these features allow you to square-up any attached camera without having to fiddle with a T-mount’s grub screws.Adjustable pressure plate on the focus tube:A knurled screw at the back of the plastic focuser housing allows you to softly clamp the focuser tube in place (to prevent inadvertent focus shifts). The chromed plastic focuser tube slides smoothly in its guides and, with very little backlash in the rack and pinion, offers precise and easy focusing.Focus travel:For visual use (20mm eyepiece plus erector prism) the closest focus is about 13ft from the front of the scope. The focuser tube has about 70mm of available travel - and the point of focus lies about 50mm outside of the fully racked-out eyepiece holder. Notice that this means that you cannot focus the scope when using eyepieces alone (for traditional inverted astro views), the erector prism (or an eyepiece extension tube) is essential to provide an adequate optical path length to give a focused image. The scope, however, readily allows infinity focus with a dslr on a T-mount (tried with Pentax and Olympus dslrs) – though with mirrorless compact system cameras extension tubes may be required to compensate for their shorter lens-mount to sensor distance. With a heavy camera, however, to reduce the extent of ‘rack-out’ of the focuser and the consequent strain on the thin plastic focuser tube, I'd advise the use of a camera-extension T-tube. Extension tubes have the added advantage of enabling closer focus.Eyepieces:The eyepieces have standard astronomical 1.25 inch push-fit mountings – with real, chromed-metal, nose-pieces. The 20mm eyepiece is a three element inverse Kellner (I’ve not taken the 10mm one apart yet!). It offers a very respectable image: geometric distortion is not excessive and sharpness is good across the claimed 50-degree apparent field of view. The 10mm eyepiece is ok – but the apparent field of view is noticeably less than that of the 20mm one.Lens Cap:The supplied lens cap is a two piece item – offering the option of viewing through a central aperture of about 42mm in diameter (effectively reducing the scope’s aperture from f5.7 to about f9.5) … handy for looking at bright targets. The restricted aperture also has the useful side-effect of reducing chromatic fringes. This smaller aperture, however, causes a degree of vignetting - so that photographs darken towards the edges and corners of the frame when using 4/3rds and larger sensors. For smaller sensors (e.g. ¼ or 1/3 inch web-cams or CCTV cameras) this is not a problem.Alignment:The optical axis of the focuser is out of alignment with the centre of the objective’s mounting (by about 4mm in my case) and it shifts as you tighten the focus tube clamp screw.No collimation or centring adjustments are provided.Moulding ‘flash’ in the lens holder and on the lens retaining collar means the objective lens is not squarely seated or evenly clamped.Contrast:The objective lens is not edge-blackened so image contrast is lower than it could be.The lens retaining collar is polished and reflects general glare down into the scope.The inner barrel of the eyepiece mount is polished plastic (very bad - if using a T-mount for prime focus photography).The push-on lens hood is too short to offer much protection from stray off-axis light.The internal baffles and the smooth matt black painted interior are of only limited effectiveness in controlling light scatter.Field curvature limits the scope’s photographic (prime focus) usefulness to small sensor cameras (4/3rds or smaller).Mechanical:A heavy camera attached to a 1.25 inch push-fit adapter (e.g. for eyepiece projection) would be in serious peril of falling to the ground because the plastic eyepiece holder has only two, small, eyepiece-securing screws. Only the T-mount option offers adequate mechanical security to an otherwise unsupported camera.Some simple suggestions for DIY Improvements (this is for dedicated tweakers only):Please note – implementing some of the following suggestions will invalidate your guarantee … so proceed at your own risk.1 - Fit a longer lens hood:Non image forming light, bouncing off the interior of the scope, floods your camera’s sensor with useless illumination – sapping colour-saturation and contrast from the scene. This is less problematic with direct visual observation (or photography through an eyepiece) - as the eyepiece’s restricted field of view shuts out some of this indirect light. A camera’s naked sensor, on the other hand, has an extremely wide field of view, it can ‘see’ the illuminated side-walls just as well as it can see the direct image-forming light from the lens, so considerable pains should be taken to prevent indirect light falling on it. The simplest and least invasive improvement would be to extend the length of the plastic lens hood using a tube of (black) cardboard … 12 inches or so should work wonders.2 - Line internally with velvet or felt:The interior of the narrow bore focuser tube is particularly prone to scattering off-axis light and funnelling it down towards the camera’s sensor. Black felt is a good lining material though the best absorption of stray light is obtained with velvet. The front half of the main tube will also benefit from a lining of black cloth.3 - Insert an eyepiece’s nose-piece (for prime focus photography):The inner barrel of the eyepiece holder is polished plastic – it reflects light easily and for prime focus photography this needs to be tamed. The simplest solution is to borrow the chrome nose-piece from one of your eyepieces, line it with felt and fit an O-ring over one end. The O-ring will stop the nose-piece falling into the ‘scope and damaging the objective lens. The O-ring will also block the sliver of light that squeezes through the gap between the outside of the nose-piece barrel and the inside of the eyepiece holder.4 - Remove mould flash from the lens mount and retaining ring:The objective lens sits on a ring moulded into the plastic lens holder and is then clamped in place by the screw-in front retaining ring. Both the seating ring and the retaining ring show slight moulding ‘flash’. This needs to be removed. Use a small craft knife to scrape away the excess plastic from the lens mounts – to provide a level seating surface and an evenly-distributed retaining-pressure for the lens. When reassembling, the retaining ring should be tightened only just enough to stop the lens rattling within the mount … excessive and uneven pressures will cause the lens-pair to distort.5 - Black-edge the objective lensThe matt-ground edge of the objective lens scatters non image forming light into the ‘scope. The lens is a doublet:: a pair of lenses separated (and held together) by three small plastic wedges sandwiched between the front and rear elements. You can remove the lens-pair from its mount (taking care not to separate the two elements) by unscrewing the front retaining ring. Cleanliness is vital - handle the lens only with soft glass-cleaning cloths or cotton gloves. Use a black permanent marker pen to blacken the edges of the lens pair. Note – the thinner of the two lenses is the outermost one – so reassemble accordingly.6 - Paint the lens retaining ring matt black:The lens retaining ring has a smooth polished inner surface which reflects stray light down into the scope. Line it with felt or paint it matt black.7 - Collimate:Although no collimation adjustments are provided there are a couple of simple things that can be done to improve the scope’s optical alignment. You will need a laser collimator for this – available on Amazon from around £20. If you fit the collimator in place of an eyepiece, its beam will partly bounce-back from each of the air-glass surfaces of the lens. Three reflections should be seen in the collimator’s window (four - if you are extremely unlucky) – they will not be narrow pinpoints as they are reflecting from quite highly curved surfaces. Ideally, however, all the reflections should centre on the laser’s exit aperture in the middle of the collimator’s screen. You will be lucky indeed to have three such centrally co-located reflections. In my case, initial tests showed only one reflection on the collimator’s screen … the other two were so far off-axis that the reflected beams didn’t even make it back into the eyepiece holder!7.1 - Align the Axes of the Focuser and the Main Tube:To see how far out of ‘true’ the axis of the focuser is with that of the main tube try the following test. On a thin sheet of paper, scribe a circle with a drawing compass. The scribed circle needs to be exactly the same diameter as the outside of the main tube. Remove the lens hood and the objective lens-holder then temporarily tape or glue the paper circle over the open end of the main tube - ensuring that the rim of the tube lies exactly on top of the scribed circle. The pinprick on the paper (caused by the compass) will then lie on the central axis of the main tube. Fit the laser into the eyepiece holder and switch on. The distance between the central pinprick and the laser spot shows just how far out of alignment the focuser is with respect to the main tube.If the laser beam lands on the centre of the scribed circle, consider yourself lucky. If, however, the laser spot is far adrift from the scribed circle’s centre point then you can try the following tweaks: Remove the three screws that fix the focuser to the main tube. Rotate the whole focuser assembly and see whether the laser spot moves towards the centre of the paper circle. I was fortunate; I found that I only needed to rotate the entire focuser unit by one screw-hole (i.e. by 120 degrees) to obtain a reasonably centralised laser spot. If you find that an intermediate degree of rotation gives the best result, you can bore three new pilot holes in the focuser’s plastic body – to accept the original retaining screws. More drastic remedies include elongating the three screw holes in the main tube - allowing the entire focuser to be 'wiggled' into alignment.7.2 - Centre the Objective Lens:The objective lens is a loose fit in its holder – there is perhaps a millimetre or so of lateral rattle-room to play with. Having first aligned the focuser’s axis with that of the main tube, you may then care to try moving the lens from side to side, within its holder, to try to make the multiple laser reflections all fall on the centre of the collimator’s screen. This needs to be done with the scope pointing vertically up - and the lens clamping ring removed. There may not be sufficient ‘free play’ available within the lens mount to achieve perfectly returned reflections – but, as in the case of the focuser unit, you can also try rotating the entire lens mount by 120 or 240 degrees to improve the degree of coincidence of the multiple laser-spot reflections. The reflections test is extremely sensitive and the simple the act of tightening the eyepiece retaining screws to clamp the laser will cause large shifts in the positions of the returning laser spots – so don't be overly concerned with precise spot locations … just getting them all onto the laser's target screen is achievement enough.None of the above suggestions should be regarded in any way as condemnation of the 'scope. As a visual scope for spotting or simple astronomical viewing, the compromises of design and construction have been well chosen by the manufacturer and, straight out of the box, it performs much better than its modest price tag might suggest. Asking it to perform in more demanding photographic applications, however, shows the need for better control of stray light. Fortunately these simple mods are well within the capability of anyone raised in the ‘Blue Peter’ school of diy – and tackling them should reward you with a more versatile and better performing bit of optical kit.I give it five stars – for its value for money – and for the ease with which inveterate diy-ers (like me) can have a go at pushing its performance towards the limits of its theoretical capability.

I am thoroughly pleased with my purchase of this telescope. Alignment and tracking feature works very well as long as you follow Celestron's tips in the manual. I leveled the tripod and put in the time and my lat and long to give as accurate a location as possible. It has several options for alignment but I find skyalign to be the simplest and quickest. I used skyalign and chose betelgeuse, jupiter and a bright star that I didn't know to align with and I was up and running. I observed Jupiter for over an hour with barely any perceptible drift. The tour function works pretty well, though I recommend a lower power eyepiece to start because it seems that how far away you are from your alignment stars (or planets) has an affect on accuracy. Sometimes it puts objects dead center, sometimes it will be toward a side of the eyepiece. The good news is that you can center it and the scope will continue to track it very accurately allowing you to swap in a more powerful eyepiece. On the topic of eyepieces, the ones that come with the scope feel very cheap. I would describe them as "plasticky". They work decently, but if you have any interest in making amateur astronomy a long term hobby, you will absolutely want to get some new eyepieces and a barlow. I won't fault Celestron for the eyepieces, I planned on buying better ones anyway. My only gripe, and not against the scope itself because it does its job splendidly, is that this scope doesn't come in a 6" or 8" aperture. It was working so well that I got selfish and was yearning to see more. As far as accessories go, you will certainly want a power source that is NOT 8 AA batteries. The AC adapter and an extension cord comes highly recommended. I would also recommend the car cigarette lighter power cord as well if you plan on traveling for darker skies. I considered purchasing a power tank but the majority of reviews have been negative. The RS232 cord might be worth purchasing if you intend to connect your scope to a computer but bear in mind that you will need a USB to RS232 adapter unless you have a decade old computer that you still use. Why they use such a byzantine cable is beyond me. To sum this up, I highly recommend the Nexstar 127 SLT if you have a serious interest in taking up astronomy as a hobby. Operating the scope is a simple task and it provides some very nice views. Just invest in some quality eyepieces and a power adapter.

Revived the scope on my AR, and nice to have a good spare for the rifle case.

I can tell you this telescope is great. assembly was easy and parts were prefabbed to excellent quality standards. the finder works okay but I would like a 90 degree viewer finder so I dont have to bend down and stick my head to the scope. Know that you are not done spending money! Look up eyepiece prices they are ASTRONOMICAL! I bought used and new ones on eBay for a reasonable prices $25-$50 each for cheapest ones you will at least want to buy a 15 mm and a 40 mm and a 2x Barlow eyepiece. 1.25'' sizes are cheapest . you can buy individual 2'' pieces from the Celestron eyepiece kit that is sold on amazon for $270 for $45 a piece separately if you can find them on eBay that's like the cheapest for 2" if you want to go that route . Filters are $15 a piece and up. So do your research on eyepieces. you may be better off buying a kit than separate pieces sometimes.No camera pictures from this look as clear as the objects seen with your eye in the eyepiece by the way. But it seems like a great beginner scope. One thing tho NO EYEPIECE HOLDER! it has holes for it but doesn't come with it. Why not!I have a 3d printer so can make one that is on thing averse ( look up Orion eyepiece holder).30 minute build time. comes with all tools. Use your own Allen wrenches because theirs strip.

This is a great little monocular I use while hunting. Great for looking for targets without using the scope on my rifle. Using the scope on a rifle breaks many firearms safety rules.I also use this to test targets at 50 yards when at the range. At 100 yards I can't make out even 45 caliber holes with it. I plan to by a 10-30X model now that I have been so happy with this cheaper one.

I was in the market for a good small scope that I could use at a moment’s notice with a minimum of fuss and bother and that I could also use as a travel scope without having to baby it. I already own two telescopes (in addition to several binoculars) – a JMI RB-66 on a large alt-az mount (consisting of two 6” reflecting telescopes yoked together and used like a giant binocular) and a Takahashi Sky90 refractor on an equatorial go-to mount. I love both scopes, but the JMI is heavy, cumbersome and a beast to move around. The Sky90 is a lot smaller and lighter, but, when combined with the equatorial mount, it’s still a little too big and heavy to run outside and use on a whim. It was also expensive enough that I’m not comfortable using it as a travel scope where it’s likely to undergo some rough handling. As a result, what I usually found myself doing was grabbing a set of binoculars and using those. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that the image is too shaky to be of much use or to get much enjoyment out of. Enter this scope – at least on paper, the specs were ideal for my needs: It has an aperture of 80mm, which is a good compromise size that should permit decent planetary viewing, lunar viewing, wide-field star viewing (essential for sights such as the Pleiades and certain star clusters) and at least the more prominent individual stars. It’s got a short focal length of 400mm, which makes it more portable and lighter than scopes with a longer focal length. It appeared from the specs to have a stable mount, which is essential for steady viewing. It contains all the accessories necessary to get you started – 3 lenses, a diagonal and a finding scope. And finally, it is being offered at a low enough price that I wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a travel scope. But be aware that this is a compromise size for a telescope. A focal length this short pretty much limits you to lower magnifications. Push the magnification too high and you’ll end up with various optical aberrations, unless you spend a lot of money to get a premium scope that is built to overcome those limitations. This is just a matter of the physics of the situation and it’s going to be a limitation for this sized scope, no matter who makes it. On the other hand, a scope of this size gives you a wider field of view than a scope with a longer focal length and there’s a lot to be said for wide-field telescope viewing. In addition, more aperture is almost always better than less aperture, since the larger the aperture, the more light that will be gathered. However, each small increase in aperture results in much higher prices and much larger sizes. As I said previously, for my purposes, 80mm was a good compromise. There are two other “compromises” in the specs for this particular scope of which the buyer should be aware: First, the diagonal provides an upright image, much like a spotting scope would; and second, the scope uses an alt-az mount, rather than an equatorial mount. But for me, neither of these were a disadvantage. First, if you’re going to be using an alt-az mount and you’re finding targets using star hopping rather than a go-to mount, then it seems to me that using a diagonal with an upright image is easier and more intuitive to use than a reversing-image diagonal. Second, I think that learning to find targets using star charts and star hopping is a good thing to do and I think that it is easier to do that using an alt-az mount rather than an equatorial mount. Now, on to how this particular scope performed in real life: Unpacking: When I received the shipping box, it looked like it had gone through some pretty rough handling on the way from the seller to me. However, when I opened everything up, it was clear that it had been well cushioned and there was no damage to anything that I could see. Assembly: The only instructions are contained on a laminated picture board that details the steps necessary for assembly. However, the only thing you really have to do is to fit the already assembled optical tube assembly, finder scope and diagonal to the mount. Other than that, everything is already assembled. The only caution I would give you involves the finder scope. In addition to two collimating screws, there’s also a metal spring button that helps to secure the finder scope within its own small tube (which is then attached to the main scope). This metal spring button comes in four small pieces – a small metal canister which is already screwed into the finder-holder tube, a small metal spring, a second canister which slides into the first, and a small screw which holds everything together. In my package, the spring, second canister and screw were all loose in the packaging, so make sure you don’t throw anything away until you’ve found them and assembled them properly. The instructions don’t tell you how to assemble them but when you look at the pictures and see what the purpose of the spring button is you’ll find that there’s only one way that it all works. The second thing to note about the finder scope is that there should be a rubber O-ring near the objective lens side of the finder scope. This O-ring fits in a groove on the finder scope and when the finder scope is inserted into its holder, it needs to be pushed in far enough that this O-ring actually fits inside the holder. This is an important step, because it ensures that the finder scope is securely held in its holder and doesn’t slide around. I saw a You Tube review that complained about a loose finder scope on this scope and it was clear that he had not followed this step, which was the cause of his problem Calibrating the finder scope: In daylight, take the assembled scope outside and insert your lowest powered eyepiece into the diagonal (that’s the 25mm eyepiece). Then aim the scope at a far-away object, center that object in the scope and focus the scope. Then, look through the finder scope. Before you do anything else, focus the finder scope until you get a sharp image of whatever it’s pointed at. You do that by twisting the front barrel of the finder scope. Once it’s focused, turn each set screw in the finder scope separately until the same object that is in the center of your main viewing lens appears in the X crosshairs of the finder scope. If you want to fine-tune it, replace the lens with a higher magnification lens and reset the finder scope. At this point, the finder scope should be good enough to use for the first time. When you use it for the first time at night, you can then calibrate it one more time and, at that point, you shouldn’t have to fiddle with it anymore. I didn’t expect anything special from this finder scope and thought that I would probably have to replace it. I was wrong. It is not flimsy, it appears to have good optics, it is stable and it does exactly what it should do – it enables you to easily find and center your scope on the intended target and then tighten down the telescope so that you can switch to your main eyepiece and be confident that your target will be in the center of your field of view. The quality of the finder scope was a pleasant surprise. The mount: From the pictures online and the specs, the mount certainly seemed sturdy, but the proof is in the pudding – is it sturdy and heavy enough to be stable, does it move smoothly and can it be locked down effectively so that it doesn’t drift? The answer is yes to all three questions. Bear in mind that the scope itself is very light. There is no need to use counterweights with this scope. In any event, the mount was rock solid. It didn’t tremble and it didn’t shake. The legs lock absolutely securely after they’re extended. The mount moves the scope smoothly in all directions and then locks down tight when you’ve centered your target. This is a quality mount. The eyepieces: There is both good news and bad news about the eyepieces (including the 3X Barlow lens). The lowest magnification eyepiece (the 25mm) and the middle magnification eyepiece (the 10mm) both performed fine. Good focus was easily achieved and the view appeared sharp enough for my purposes from edge to edge. The highest magnification eyepiece (the 5mm) was a piece of junk. Even in daylight, views were fuzzy. Using it to look at the moon, or Jupiter, or stars was a waste of time. It would simply not come into focus, no matter what I did. Maybe this was just bad luck with the particular eyepiece that I received, but I won’t be using it. However, another pleasant surprise for me with this scope was the 3X Barlow lens that came with the scope. It is a short lens and it’s entirely made of plastic so that it appears to be pretty flimsy. I’m not a big fan of Barlow lenses to begin with and I didn’t have high hopes for this one. However, when I found that the 5mm eyepiece was useless, I decided to go ahead and try the Barlow lens. Much to my surprise, it not only worked, it worked pretty darn well. Like all Barlow lenses, it darkens the image and it simply magnifies whatever image you’re already receiving with the underlying eyepiece – it doesn’t improve that image. But if you want higher magnification than the 40X provided by the 10mm eyepiece, you can either buy a new eyepiece or you can use the Barlow lens. This Barlow lens is good enough to give you both options. The optical tube assembly (the “OTA”): This is the heart of the scope. I ran it through four tests: First, when I was calibrating the finder scope, I also looked to see how the OTA performed. Second, I used the scope shortly after dusk. While there was some cloud cover and we were expecting rain later that evening, there was a clear view of Jupiter and also of a bright star, Arcturus. But because of high humidity, viewing conditions were not ideal. Third, I got up at 3:30 in the morning and went back out again. By this time, Jupiter was no longer visible, but the half-moon was clearly visible and there were also a large number of stars visible. Between my first viewing and the second one, we had had a good rain, which seemed to clear some of the humidity from the air, resulting in better viewing conditions. Finally, this morning, I used a collimating eyepiece to check the collimation of the OTA. Daylight views were fine, but they’re not much of a test for an astronomical telescope. Suffice it to say that the views were clear and well-focused (except when I used the 5mm eyepiece). My first views of the evening were also good. Using the medium eyepiece (10mm – 40X), I could clearly focus and see Jupiter and four of its moons. I was also able to clearly see two equatorial bands on Jupiter. Clarity was good but not exceptional, probably due to the high humidity. Arcturus resolved clearly. I did not see any color or other aberrations and the view using the two lower-powered eyepieces appeared to be sharp from edge to edge. Just for fun, I also used one of my own wide-field eyepieces, a 40mm eyepiece. It gave a spectacular wide-field view of the stars. That use of the scope is clearly one of its strengths. Finally, I did a rough collimation check by moving the scope slightly out of focus to see if the image remained round and without distortion. It did, suggesting to me that the tube was properly collimated (more on that later). My views later in the evening were even better. The details on the moon were sharp with no color or other aberrations in the view and the stars appropriately resolved to single points of light. I did the same rough collimation check as I did earlier and the results appeared to confirm my original impression that the scope was well collimated. The one point I should mention from both of my evening views is that the contrast is less in this scope than it is in my Takahashi. The Takahashi is a much more expensive scope and the lens coating and scope baffling is top-rate, so the comparison may not be a fair one. Moreover, the contrast in this Chinese-made scope (and most scopes today are probably made in China, even the most well-known brands sold in America) was perfectly fine and didn’t detract from my use or enjoyment of this scope. The buyer should just be aware that he or she shouldn’t expect the same deep contrast you get with more expensive scopes. Finally, after daylight, I used a collimating eyepiece from Orion to check out the collimation of the scope. I’m no expert, but it certainly appeared to me from that test that the scope is spot-on in its collimation. Bottom line conclusions: For my purposes, this is a great scope for the price. It is small and portable (I could easily move the entire scope and mount from place to place using only one hand). It performs very well indeed when used for wide-field views at lower magnifications, but still permits excellent lunar viewing and good planetary viewing. The acid test for me would be to see whether it clearly resolved double stars. I didn’t have the opportunity to try this last night. If and when I do try it with this scope, I’ll try to remember to come back and edit this review to add those results. But I expect that that might prove a challenge for this scope because of the higher magnifications normally required to clearly split doubles. In any event, if you require higher magnifications, you should probably be looking for a different type of scope altogether, but you’ll probably need a much larger and more expensive scope than this one. Also, because this scope doesn’t come with an equatorial mount or a motorized mount, don’t expect to use it for astrophotography. But for a small, portable scope with enough aperture to offer a large number of different viewing experiences, this scope was perfect for my needs. I highly recommend it. I received this scope at a discount for my honest opinion.

Firstly, apologies for the weather, it always seems to turn cloudy or wet when I even so much as look at a telescope.Gskyer is a German company that sells a range of inexpensive refractor and reflector telescopes (and binoculars), all at low prices and ideal for someone with a new interest in astronomy.This came delivered in a large, sturdy cardboard box, with the brand details on the side. As I wasn't home, the courier had helpfully left the parcel by my garage and it got soaked. Luckily the box is made of such thick cardboard that none of the inside was wet or even damp when I opened it up.Inside the main box are five smaller boxes containing the refractor telescope itself, the tripod (and , a box of eye pieces and the tripod arm. The final box was empty and was just there to stop everything moving around. There's also a resealable plastic bag containing simple illustrations of how to assemble the scope and a lens cloth. There's text in English on one side of the instructions and Chinese on the other.While every thing fits together nicely, it's obvious that there's some rough edges on metal parts and the paint doesn't cover everything neatly and there's few chips and scratches here and there, but this is merely cosmetic. On the alt-azimuth mount (a simple two-axis mount) there are no slow-motion knobs for getting precisely zeroed in on a star, cluster or planet, or to keep tracking motion smooth if you want to take long exposure photograph of an object. It's more just point the spotting scope and line it up as best you can. For most of the time, that's enough.As for other bits in the box, you get a 25mm, 10mm and 5mm eyepieces as well as a 3x Barlow (that goes between the scope and the eyepiece and it triples the magnification of any eyepiece). Note, this scope will use any 1.25" eyepiece you could want to buy. Thay was you can upgrade the supplied eyepieces or even pick ones for specific tasks, ie for planet hunting or deep sky / nebulae. It would be interesting to see if better eyepieces improve the quality of skywatching.So everything's assembled in about 10 minutes and it's obvious this is light enough to move easily about without putting your back out. Also, it doesn't need a counterweight to keep the main scope balanced so that's a help. Gskyer say this can also be used for daytime viewing, like for birdwatching and wildlife (but never the neighbours). The fact the telescope slides onto the tripod and then is locked in place, makes it a simple job to get up and running quickly, that's a good thing. The tripod triangular tray locks neatly into place and provides more stability but you'll probably need to unclip it to fold the tripod up to get it through a door. It does look pretty cool all assembled. They tray's good for keeping your eyepieces safely in one place while you're out in the dark.The tripod is rather on the short side and the 48° BAK7 prism zenith mirror could do with being more like 90° as if the scope is pointed any where near vertically you need to bend over (or get a chair) to see through the eyepiece and using the 5mm or 10mm eyepiece is difficult.Again, pretty much total sky cover this evening, even the moon was too hazy to look at. I will update this review with more information, but at the moment I'm hard pressed to consider another telescope that gives this much for your money.Only thing to add to this telescope is this book:Turn Left at Orion: A Hundred Night Sky Objects to See in a Small Telescope - and How to Find Themthough you'll probably find that Sky Map app for Android or Star Walk 2 - Night Sky Map for iOS to be more useful out in the field on a starry night.UPDATE:First night with some breaks in the clouds. The spottting scope was the hardest to get aligned with the main telescope, took me about 15 minutes of moving and affixing to get the cross hairs aligned with the centre of the main lens..Was able to find and focus on the half moon easily enough, though the moon was so bright it was difficult to see much detail apart from at the terminator (the "dividing line" between the lit and dark parts of the moon) I've borrowed a Vixen eyepiece filter set containing six coloured filter. There's a black filter that should cut down on the light from the moon and make contrast better. I was impressed the filters fitted to the Gskyer eyepieces (screwed onto the rear thread). Mars was also visible low in the sky (towards the south), but at best couldn't see much more than a reddish blob. More soon.Update 2:Partially cloudy night again. The focussing mechanism is stepped, so I found critical focussing difficult, as was using the 10mm & 5mm eyepieces (the 10mm eyepiece rattled and needed tightening up).Update 3:Clear skies! What a difference that makes. Found Jupiter, wasn't able to resolve enough to see the Great Spot, but did see three moons shining (two upper right and one bottom left). Swivelling around to Saturn, you could *just about* make out the rings, again the limitations of the stepped focuser made it difficult to acquire perfect focus. The moon, moving towards full, was gloriously bright, so the Vixen filters helped cut the brightness down so you could marvel at the craters (Copernicus and Tycho were easy to recognise).Update 4:Anoither clear night, though low horizon cloud hid Jupiter. Borrowed an old Canon EOS 30D and a telescope adaptor and shot the moon. It's a 12 year old DSLR, so no live view and resolution isn't that great, but I like the photo. Saturn was just sadly a small pixelly blob.

This telescope is great but daunting. This is my first telescope. It was very easy to assemble, and the instructions are very simple to follow. it is also very light weight and pretty compact making it easy to travel with. I live in Mesa, AZ and there are a few mountains around here that I can hike up, and taking this with me is no trouble at all. Red Dot Scope: The Red Dot Scope has proven itself pretty much useless. I cannot tell where i'm supposed to put my head in order to have it lined up with the view of the scope itself. it is slightly adjustable, but I have not been able to line it up with what I see in the scope. Because of this i usually find myself just pointing the red dot at an object and then moving the scope in mini circles while looking through the eye piece. *(Tip: if you are looking for a bright object you can pull the eyepiece all the way out of focus. This will make the object look like a big bright disc with a cross in it. When you see this disc you can start focusing while adjusting the angle of the scope. It makes the hunt sooo much easier. Do not use this method with the moon. It's just too big.)* Balancing: You cannot perfectly balance this scope. Because of the aesthetics on the scope i cannot center the scope in the rings where it will be perfectly balanced, however i have not tried mounting the scope just off center of it's bracket to change the position of its axis of rotation. At the same time i feel that i shouldn't have to. Since i cannot perfectly balance the scope i find at certain extreme angles the scope will rotate on its own, however because of the method i use to find objects with this scope that balance issue does not really affect me since i'll be holding the scope the entire time until i lock it in.*(Tip: While locking the scope into position, the scope will move. So be sure to look through the eyepiece while locking the axes(axes is plural for axis)so you know which direction the object went. Right and left are flipped with the 25mm eyepiece, and up/down are flipped with the 10mm eyepiece.) Fine Tuning Knobs: The fine tune knobs look cheap, but they are flexible for a reason. The Mount: Using an equatorial mount for a novice is very daunting at first. However it is important to learn how to use this mount if you plan to get into Astrophotography. Also the movement of the scope does not take long to get use to, and all of the aggravation accumulated while getting your object into view is immediately dissipated when you finally get the object in sight. What You Will See: The Moon: They moon will take up the entire scope of view with the 20mm eyepiece. It is Awesome. Very Awesome. And if you find it too bright the center of the scope cover pops out so you can limit the amount of light coming into the scope. Very awesome. Jupiter: You will see Jupiter. You will even be able to see a few of Jupiter's bands. You will also see some of Jupiter's moons. Venus: It is super bright. every time i see it through the scope i also see a lens flare, but you still will be able to make out its shape. Saturn: You will see Saturn. You will also be able to see its rings,(it will look like 1 ring) as well as 1 color band. The reason i bought this scope was to see Saturn and it does not disappoint. *(With the 10mm eyepiece Saturn will take up about 1/100th of your viewing area. Still awesome. Mars: You will see mars, but because of its color, it will seem feint. I have found the view of Saturn, Jupiter, and Orion's Nebula to be much more satisfying. M42/M43(Orion's nebula): You will not really be able to see the nebula since it is very feint, but you will see the star clusters with ease which is still very breath taking.To be honest i have found these sights to be so satisfying i haven't even begun to look for other object. I have seen all of these with ease in my apartment complex, which is filled with light pollution. All of these have been seen as described using only the eyepieces that came with the scope. There are also many filters and many eyepieces that can be used to enhance your view of the heavens. Maximum Magnification: This scope has a maximum useful magnification of 269x. This means that the smallest useful eyepiece is 3.71mm. This magnification can also be obtained with a 7.40mm eyepiece and a 2x Barlow lens. *(Tip: The smaller the number on your eyepiece the higher its magnification. So, if you cannot find these exact eyepieces go for a larger number so that you do not exceed the Max. Mag. This does not apply to the Barlow Lens)* Summation: All in all this is a very good beginner telescope; especially for its price. Not only will you get decent views of bright astral bodies, but the scope itself is challenging enough to develop real astronomical skills that will prove useful if you decide to delve deeper into the world of amateur astronomy. The only thing keeping this scope from attaining 5 stars is the red dot sight. (this took me too long to write for proofreading so sorry for any typos or grammatical errors.)