My wife bought me this telescope for our anniversary. I’ve always said I wanted one. This one comes with a tripod, mount and compact lightweight telescope. It also comes with various add-on eyepieces so that you can change the amount of magnification, as well as a mobile device mount to make it easier to view on the screen and take pictures. I’ve used it with my 4-year old son to look at the moon, stars, airplanes, and trains. I would say this telescope is for beginners and good for use with kids.

I bought this telescope so that I would have something to look at the sky with when I travel to observatories in the northern and southern hemispheres. For the price this telescope is a pretty good value; it's portable (nicely fits into my suitcase) and reasonably powerful. It's great for looking at star clusters which need a wide field of view to fit the whole thing into view. This was the first telescope I've had where I could fit the entire Pleiades cluster into the field of view. At home, it's a great telescope since it's fast to set up and take outside for a few minutes. You may not think about it, but the amount of work to set up a telescope will translate directly into how much you use it.The only con that I see with the telescope is that the tripod it comes with is fairly unstable; it's a regular camera tripod. It may be a bit frustrating trying to center on objects since it's a bit wobbly and hard to precisely center on something since it flexes a bit as well. Centering with the higher magnification eyepiece is even more tricky. I found that a different tripod I had for my camera works a bit better. Someone buying this for casual use may not notice, but the image quality does degrade toward the edges of the field of view; that's to be expected since it has such fast optics and wide field of view.

I bought this telescope for my dad for Christmas. He has always loved astronomy but has never had a telescope. It was easy to set up and he had it out, looking at stars the night he opened it. It's easy to move around and I think it will be a great addition to our camping trips this year. This is great for a beginner. Some people have complained that the tripod isn't sturdy, but I haven't noticed that. Definitely recommend this telescope!

I bought this telescope for my family. Our kids and I are novice We live pretty out there in the woods so we get a great view of the sky. First the telescope came in a storage/carrying case and was pretty easy to take out with its tripod. What amazed us was the 3 eyepieces in one that was easily rotated. Didn't have to remove any eyepieces like our last telescope. My little ones loved it when we focused in on the moon. The highlight was the smartphone adapter which really interested our teenage son. He attached his smartphone to the telescope and we were able to see through the camera in big screen and the kicker...we were able to take pictures and video everything we looked at. This telescope is perfect for us!

I bought this telescope for my niece a year ago. She absolutely loves it. After a year of abuse by a 10 year old girl and a 5 year old boy, it still looks and works as great as ever. It is a mostly plastic telescope and sheet metal tripod legs, but it is far better quality and more tough than other scopes in the same price range and if you're buying a first telescope for a rambunctious knuckle headed kid, you can't' beat it. The lenses are leaps and bounds better quality than other toy scopes in this range.

I actually use this with a spotting telescope for birding. It is very good in the sense that it moves around easily. Squeezing the handle allows one to move it and releasing it stops it in place. This allows one to move the spotting telescope quickly, a particular advantage in bird watching. The construction of the head is excellent and the quick release allows one to attach the spotting telescope to the tripod quickly and release it equally quickly. (The same would be true for telephoto lenses for cameras.) This allows one to set up quickly, which is particularly important for my use since birds don't necessarily wait around a long time. My only reservation is that this head is heavy. It weighs almost as much as my carbon fiber tripod. This is not be a problem if one is staying in one place for extended periods, but if you are trudging through marshes lighter is better.

I bought this for my 12 year old sons birthday based on the reviews that this is a great beginners telescope. He was so excited and immediately went outside to look at the moon- he was able to use the viewfinder and had the telescope focused in less than 5 minutes. The tripod is unstable which per other reviews we expected but all in all a great purchase.

I am very happy with this purchase for a starter telescope. My kids can even use it with ease. The tripod is light weight and we weighed it down for a bit more stability. I would definitely recommend this product.