![]() ![]() The TravelScope 80 certainly isn’t perfect, but you get a lot for your money. The SpaceProbe II’s equatorial mount is also lightweight and sturdy with such a small instrument mounted atop it.Īn optional kit provided by Orion, which we heartily recommend, adds in a few star charts, a red flashlight for finding your accessories in the dark without ruining your night vision, and most importantly a 2x 1.25 Barlow lens, allowing you to double the magnifications of the included eyepieces to 56x and 140x – making for a great medium magnification solution while allowing you to push the limit of what the 3 aperture of the SpaceProbe can resolve at 140x. The included 25mm Kellner ocular provides a magnification of 28x – a little more cramped than other scopes on this list, but plenty wide of a view for looking at nebulae and star clusters. It also means that the included 10mm Kellner eyepiece provides an optimally high magnification of 70x, great for viewing details of the planets or splitting double stars with no additional purchase needed right away. The SpaceProbe II doesn’t have as much aperture as the other reflectors on our list, but its long focal ratio of f/9 makes it a little easier on cheaper eyepieces compared to the larger f/4 scopes which can have less-than-sharp stars towards the outer area of a low-power view with the included kit eyepieces. You can get an Observer 114mm kit with a 2x Barlow lens (allowing for magnifications of 40x and 100x with the included eyepieces) which might be a good idea, or upgrade to the larger 134mm model as well. However, the equatorial mount is somewhat cumbersome and confusing for beginners, while the scope’s attached red dot finder is poorly designed and hard to keep aligned and consistently powered on when in use. The eyepieces included with the Observer 114mm – 25mm and 10mm Plossls providing 20x and 50x respectively – aren’t bad, and the optics are well-made and completely adjustable for collimation. It also has no trouble resolving the moons of Jupiter as tiny disks or revealing the Cassini Division in Saturn’s rings, whereas a smaller scope might struggle. It can show you plenty of star clusters, nebulae, and even galaxies provided you can get away from city light pollution. The Observer 114mm provides a bit more aperture than some of the other scopes on our list, along with a full-sized equatorial mount and tripod. ![]() It’s best accompanied by a pair of 50-60mm aperture binoculars which can be purchased cheaply and used handheld, providing superior deep-sky views to the Mak60 but lacking its magnification abilities for smaller targets like tiny lunar craterlets, the rings of Saturn, the phases of Venus, the polar ice caps on Mars, or the various cloud belts on Jupiter.īuy on Highpoint Scientific Buy on OptCorp ![]() ![]() The Mak60’s tiny aperture means it’s not the best for viewing deep-sky objects outside of the Solar System. It’s great for viewing the Moon and planets the included 20mm Kellner eyepiece provides 38x magnification, while additional, aftermarket third-party eyepieces can provide varying magnification powers up to about 120x or so. The Mak60 is offered with a photo tripod and metal tabletop tripod, but the Dobsonian mounting option is the best of the 3 supplied kits and provides steady views free of vibrations or jerky controls. It weighs practically nothing, and fits in pretty much any kind of container. The SarBlue Mak60 is an utterly tiny telescope with a tube barely bigger than a beverage can. However, it does need a specialty additional eyepiece in order to achieve suitable magnifications for viewing the planets, and collimating the telescope – that is, aligning the mirrors for the sharpest possible images – is somewhat difficult to do yourself due to the lack of built-in adjustments. The Z100 is mostly designed for looking at œfaint fuzzies like galaxies and nebulae, but performs great on the Moon and planets too. It’s lightweight enough to carry out in one hand and be using in seconds, and can even fit in a backpack or luggage if need be. You can use the Z100 on a tabletop, the hood of your car, or even a sturdy photo tripod thanks to the threads on the bottom of the base. The Z100 includes a pair of high-quality Kellner eyepieces (17mm and 10mm providing 24x and 40x respectively) which are great to start off with, and its red dot finder is well-made and easy to use for aiming the telescope. The Zhumell Z100 provides a wide field of view, has enough aperture to show you stuff, and it’s simple Dobsonian mounting makes it easy to navigate around the night sky. Buy on Amazon Buy on Highpoint Scientific ![]()
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