Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This telescope is being sold as a great scope for beginners with very easy set up. It is neither of those things. I have been trying for a couple of months to collimate this telescope and nothing appears to work. Yes, I removed the lens from the focuser and used a laser collimator to align the mirrors. Images remain blurry no matter which eyepiece I use. Yes, I made sure the laser collimator was properly aligned before starting. There is a long and informative post on this site that explains in great detail how to collimate this telescope. None of the procedures outlined worked for me. If you decide to buy this telescope despite what I have written here then I wish you the best of luck with it. Update 01/01/17: I am slowly getting this scope into alignment. If you're new to Newtonian telescopes and you're going to insist on buying one of these I urge you to get a collimation tool. I bought a laser, but I probably would have been better off with a Cheshire. You cannot be afraid to take this telescope apart, because you will be doing it a lot before you actually get to the point where you can take it outside and see things. It is a time consuming process because the nuts are not welded to the large tube. The first thing you need to do before proceeding is take out the lens at the bottom of the focuser. You can do this by extending the focuser all the way out and removing the three screws holding it to the tube being careful not to drop the nuts. After removing the lens reinstall the focuser and retract it until it hits the stop. If your telescope was like mine, you will notice that the small secondary mirror is WAY forward toward the primary mirror instead of centered on the focuser. At this point on page 26 of the instruction manual it will tell you "DO NOT loosen or tighten the center screw in the secondary mirror support". Ignore this instruction. Move the mirror back toward the spider (or forward away from the spider if your mirror is out of alignment in that direction) until the secondary mirror looks round and is centered below the focuser. You will have to loosen and tighten all four screws to accomplish this task. This is the point where helpful people on the internet, particularly two guys in Australia on YouTube, were a huge help. As I said, I bought a laser collimator. What you need to do is remove the spider (this holds the secondary mirror) and then remove the primary mirror, being careful not to touch or drop the mirror. I found the primary mirror to be mounted very close to the center (I was eyeballing it, but still). There are four holes for the screws that hold the mirror mount to the tube. They appeared to be equidistant from one another (again, eyeballing it), so I got some string and tied two pieces across the opposite holes. I then took a felt tip marker and placed a dot where the two strings intersected. Then I removed the strings and placed a plastic adhesive paper hole reinforcer on the mirror making sure to place the marker dot in the center of the hole reinforcer. Trust me, you won't see any of this stuff when you get ready to look at the heavens. I then used the adjustment screws on the mirror holder to snug it down to the rubber spacers on the mount. When you're done, the locking screws will stick out. Now put everything back together. Isn't this fun? Remember, this telescope is being marketed to first time users looking to get into astronomy, hence the reason my rating is still and will always be one star. Here is where the collimation laser comes in. I had attempted several times to collimate this telescope without that little paper hole reinforcer I told you to put on the primary mirror, because I didn't know it was supposed to be there or how helpful it would be to have it there. After making sure the laser collimator was true (easy, and luckily it came from the factory not needing adjustment which is probably the only break I got in this process) install it in the focuser with the target area facing the back of the telescope toward the primary mirror and turn it on. I used setting 3 on mine, which allowed me to see the laser clearly in the primary mirror. BEFORE you look down the tube looking for the beam on the primary mirror, stand to one side and move your hand over the opening of the telescope. If you see a red dot on your hand be EXTREMELY careful looking down into the tube. The spot where you see the dot is the dangerous place, so definitely don't look there. Your next task is to move the three screws on the secondary mirror to move the laser beam to the center of that paper hole reinforcer. Get it as close as possible. Next, move to the back of the scope and loosen the three lock screws on the primary mirror. Then move the three adjustment screws (good tip here from someone else on the internet: adjust these screws by TIGHTENING them. Loosen them only if you really have to) to center the laser beam on the target of the laser collimator. When you have finished this task you're done, right? Nope. Look down the front of the tube again and see if that beam is still centered in the primary mirror. It wasn't for me and I had to adjust the secondary a second time and then readjust the primary again. Then it was centered. So now you're done because lasers are really accurate, right? Nope, but you are a lot closer than I was the first few times I tried my hand at collimation. Next, take the focuser back out, replace the lens you removed, and reinstall the focuser. Now you have to take the scope outside and aim it at a star. Use an 8 mm eyepiece, or use a combination of Barlow and eyepiece to get close to 8 mm. The manual will tell you to find Polaris and center it in your eyepiece. Why? Because Polaris appears stationary to a ground observer looking through a telescope. All of the other stars appear to "move" (actually, you're the one moving along with the surface of the earth as it rotates on its axis, but most people don't care about the physics - for them the stars move). The problem with Polaris is that in light polluted skies it can look pretty dim, and where I am in Afghanistan (Kabul) that is a real problem along with all of the dust and smoke in the air. So I picked a brighter star which complicates things because of the apparent motion, but allows you to easily see what it is you are supposed to be looking for next so for me it was worth the extra effort involved. In any case, center the star you picked in the eyepiece (this won't last long if not Polaris - see what I mean by "extra effort?) and defocus until you see a circular glob of concentric circles. They probably won't be concentric yet which is what you're going to fix next, but if they are, stop because you're done. Something worth noting here: allow your telescope to cool down (or heat up) to the outside ambient temperature before looking at the glob or attempting further collimation. You're wasting your time if you don't follow this step. Now go to the back of the telescope and loosen the lock screws. Making sure the star you picked is still centered in your eyepiece move the adjustment screws until the circles on that glob of light are concentric. As you adjust a screw the star will move away from the center of the eyepiece. Make ONE small adjustment and then recenter the star in your eyepiece before making another. Remember to try make adjustments by TIGHTENING screws as opposed to loosening them. Another hint: looking on the glob, when the circles are not concentric you will see widening spaces to one side. Adjust the mirror in that direction then recenter in the eyepiece. Take your time doing this. Not getting it right is not an option if you want to use this telescope and it will take time unless you are naturally good at this sort of thing. I'm not, it take me quite a few hours over a couple of nights to get it OK and I still have some work to do on it. All of my detrimental comments aside, I am enjoying learning about and using this telescope. Would I recommend it to a beginner like me? Absolutely not! If you are a beginner and want to look at things "out of the box" get yourself a refractor and spend as much as you can afford on it. Believe it or not, I had a lot more fun with the Celestron 70 mm travel scope than I had with all the headaches I've gone through with this one. Easier to use, easier to maintain, no collimation required. I did have to upgrade the tripod and add a small finely adjustable tilt thingy to get around the pain of pointing it at what I wanted to see and keeping it pointed there, and that cost more than the telescope itself but it was worth every penny. Is this telescope better than the travel telescope? Hands down, once you get it at least somewhat collimated as mine is now, but it is a huge learning curve!