Orion Telescopes & Binoculars Short Tube 80
- Optical Diameter: 80 mm
- Max Useful Magnification: x 189
- Finderscope: Optical
- Mount Type: Equatorial
- Motorized: No
- Focal Length: 400 mm
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Excellent first scope or travel scope
Pros
Small, light, inexpensive, simple. Not a cheap "toy" telescope like department store offerings.
Cons
None really for the price. Slight residual color.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This scope makes an excellent beginner scope, or an excellent travel or grab-and-go scope - simple, small and light.
Many a budding young astronomer is frustrated by cheap department store telescopes, by the shaky mounts, the poor optics and the difficulty in pointing the scopes. The Orion Short Tube 80 may be inexpensive, but rest assured it is a quality instrument where it counts. The Short Tube 80 offers fine views of the moon, planets, rich field star clusters, galaxies and nebulae.
The scope is offered in several versions. The version I purchased is advertised as a spotting scope with a finder, two eyepieces (10mm and 25mm plossl's) and a 45 degree erecting prism (which gives right side up views). Orion sells two different camera-type tripods, or you can use your own camera tripod - but make sure your camera tripod is very solid with smooth motions or pointing your new scope at night will be an exercise in frustration. Orion also offers this scope with several small equatorial telescope mounts, which I have not purchased so I won't review them.
It is often recommended that someone interested in observing the sky starts out the old fashioned way: by spending time with a planisphere, unaided eyes and graduating to a set of binoculars and finally to a telescope. This helps one to learn the sky and to make it easier to find objects at higher powers. In addition, if the person interested in astronomy is not interested enough to progress through these steps, their telescope may have been likely to collect dust in a garage or attic anyway.
I unpacked my telescope, assembled the finder and attached it to the dovetail on the scope. The next task was to aim the finder so it was pointing in the same direction as the telescope. Mounting the scope to my camera tripod I started by pointing at a distant street light with low power. I centered the streetlight in the main telescope and then turned the screws on the finder until the crosshairs met on the light, covering it. I then switched to higher power and adjusted it again. Now it is set for life - any object centered in the finder will be centered in the telescope. This is a straight through finder, and that makes finding objects near zenith (straight up) rather difficult. A Right-angle finder is much more comfortable and a worthy upgrade.
First Light
I purchased my telescope with an Orion Shorty Barlow and an additional 90 degree prism star diagonal. This combination works fine, but a mirror diagonal would be better and more versatile.
The first look through my telescope was at Venus. The view was a bit disappointing because Venus is very bright and there were fringes of color around the planet, but I could distinctly see that it was not round (Venus goes through phases, much like our moon, because its orbit is between Earth and the Sun). I looked at Venus through a nearby 6" Newtonian Reflector and the color fringes were still there, if a bit smaller, and were accompanied by strong diffraction spikes from the secondary mirror mount.
I next turned to Jupiter. I could clearly see a disk and all four moons using the low power 25mm eyepiece. Switching to the 10mm eyepiece I saw a bit more, and when I added the barlow and refocused, I was greeted with a clear 80 power view of Jupiter. The amount of color fringing (chromatic aberration) was only just noticeable on Jupiter, and I could see some cloud banding on the planet, nearly as much as the person with the 10" scope next to me.
My next target was the moon. For looking at the moon, which is very bright, I used the lens cover with the center section removed. This stops down the lens and dims the moon somewhat. With either eyepiece, the entire moon fits in the field of view. The terminator (dividing line between light and shadow) and nearby craters and mountains stood out in bold relief. This was a fascinating view, and I spent quite a while looking at our nearest neighbor. For extended lunar viewing, I would recommend getting a variable lunar filter.
As a really brutal (some would say unfair) optics comparison, I compared it to a 6" Astrophysics refractor on the globular M13 and also on the double-double star Epsilon Lyrae. Well, the little Orion doesn't really compare to a scope costing some 30 times as much. M13 was substantially resolved on the expensive instrument and just looked like a faint fuzzball in the Short Tube 80. At 80 power, the double double was resolved in the 6" instrument, but looked like slightly oval mush in the Short Tube.
Conclusion: The short Tube 80 is not designed for high power. But for the sort of viewing that I have described, such as medium power views of the moon and planets and low power viewing of starfields and Messier objects, the Short Tube was a very capable instrument and I feel it is a very good value in a scope that you can just grab and go with. Its short focal length and wide field of view makes finding objects easier than in many other inexpensive scopes. This is well worth the money.
The scope is offered in several versions. The version I purchased is advertised as a spotting scope with a finder, two eyepieces (10mm and 25mm plossl's) and a 45 degree erecting prism (which gives right side up views). Orion sells two different camera-type tripods, or you can use your own camera tripod - but make sure your camera tripod is very solid with smooth motions or pointing your new scope at night will be an exercise in frustration. Orion also offers this scope with several small equatorial telescope mounts, which I have not purchased so I won't review them.
It is often recommended that someone interested in observing the sky starts out the old fashioned way: by spending time with a planisphere, unaided eyes and graduating to a set of binoculars and finally to a telescope. This helps one to learn the sky and to make it easier to find objects at higher powers. In addition, if the person interested in astronomy is not interested enough to progress through these steps, their telescope may have been likely to collect dust in a garage or attic anyway.
I unpacked my telescope, assembled the finder and attached it to the dovetail on the scope. The next task was to aim the finder so it was pointing in the same direction as the telescope. Mounting the scope to my camera tripod I started by pointing at a distant street light with low power. I centered the streetlight in the main telescope and then turned the screws on the finder until the crosshairs met on the light, covering it. I then switched to higher power and adjusted it again. Now it is set for life - any object centered in the finder will be centered in the telescope. This is a straight through finder, and that makes finding objects near zenith (straight up) rather difficult. A Right-angle finder is much more comfortable and a worthy upgrade.
First Light
I purchased my telescope with an Orion Shorty Barlow and an additional 90 degree prism star diagonal. This combination works fine, but a mirror diagonal would be better and more versatile.
The first look through my telescope was at Venus. The view was a bit disappointing because Venus is very bright and there were fringes of color around the planet, but I could distinctly see that it was not round (Venus goes through phases, much like our moon, because its orbit is between Earth and the Sun). I looked at Venus through a nearby 6" Newtonian Reflector and the color fringes were still there, if a bit smaller, and were accompanied by strong diffraction spikes from the secondary mirror mount.
I next turned to Jupiter. I could clearly see a disk and all four moons using the low power 25mm eyepiece. Switching to the 10mm eyepiece I saw a bit more, and when I added the barlow and refocused, I was greeted with a clear 80 power view of Jupiter. The amount of color fringing (chromatic aberration) was only just noticeable on Jupiter, and I could see some cloud banding on the planet, nearly as much as the person with the 10" scope next to me.
My next target was the moon. For looking at the moon, which is very bright, I used the lens cover with the center section removed. This stops down the lens and dims the moon somewhat. With either eyepiece, the entire moon fits in the field of view. The terminator (dividing line between light and shadow) and nearby craters and mountains stood out in bold relief. This was a fascinating view, and I spent quite a while looking at our nearest neighbor. For extended lunar viewing, I would recommend getting a variable lunar filter.
As a really brutal (some would say unfair) optics comparison, I compared it to a 6" Astrophysics refractor on the globular M13 and also on the double-double star Epsilon Lyrae. Well, the little Orion doesn't really compare to a scope costing some 30 times as much. M13 was substantially resolved on the expensive instrument and just looked like a faint fuzzball in the Short Tube 80. At 80 power, the double double was resolved in the 6" instrument, but looked like slightly oval mush in the Short Tube.
Conclusion: The short Tube 80 is not designed for high power. But for the sort of viewing that I have described, such as medium power views of the moon and planets and low power viewing of starfields and Messier objects, the Short Tube was a very capable instrument and I feel it is a very good value in a scope that you can just grab and go with. Its short focal length and wide field of view makes finding objects easier than in many other inexpensive scopes. This is well worth the money.
