Tasco Luminova 40114675 Telescope
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- Optical Diameter: 114 mm
- Max Useful Magnification: x 675
- Finderscope: Optical
- Mount Type: Altazimuth Equatorial
- Motorized: No
- Focal Length: 900 mm
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watch yourself.
Pros
It's cheap! I'd recommend it over *any* refractor at this price.
Cons
It's cheap! Low quality accessories. If you can, spend more money on something else.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
It's recommended that you spend more on any telescope, and many astronomers highly recommend expensive binoculars instead of a cheap telescope. But this one isn't completely horrible either.
Tasco telescopes aren't what any serious amateur astronomer would think of as high quality. In fact, if you google just right, you'll find plenty of websites dedicated to warning you away from these telescopes. They are cheap, cheap, cheap.
However, they're not *all* bad. And the newtonian reflectors they sell (Like this one) are some of the best quality for what you're paying, which you must keep in mind, isn't a lot.
With this telescope you get everything you need to get started. You get the telescope itself, a tripod and mount, and some eyepieces to magnify the images you get. However, you can throw away the manual. The one I got was 1 page long and only described how to put the telescope and tripod together - which was obvious - and how to align the viewfinder. The manual didn't help much with finding stars, despite that they could have easily included a small planisphere to help you along. It also boasted that you could magnify images in the telescope to 625x, which is bogus for a few reasons. Number one is that most any object in space doesn't give you enough light to magnify its image that much. Number two is that the mirror isn't large enough for that even if you could. And number three is that magnification is no measure of a telescope's power anyway, which is why the Keck telescope (and every other telescope for that matter) is measured in inches, just for example. The size of the mirror defines its light gathering ability and how much you can magnify the image and still keep it visible.
There's a couple great things about this telescope though, and they go some distance to make up for its cheap design. Number one is that Newtonian Reflectors *are* cheap. It's far easier to manufacture a mirror that focuses than it is to make a lens of the same size that focuses. Also, cheap lenses introduce something called "Chromatic Aberration" which is a fancy word for saying it changes colours from what they really are and makes images look bad. Looking at the moon through a telescope with such lenses for instance would change its true greyish white colour to shades of purple and blue, and also produce a slight double image. This can't happen with a mirror however. Another great thing about reflectors is that they are generally much more comfortable to use, although they also turn the image upside down and backwards. This is no big deal because the viewfinder does the same anyway. You'll get used to it and it doesn't affect the image. There is no up or down in space after all. ;)
Once I got started learning to use the telescope and learning more about astronomy, it didn't take long to find out that although you can't go wrong with a mirror, Tasco sells the cheapest eyepieces possible with their telescopes. It's worth noting that eyepieces are half the telescope, since they provide all the magnifying power, and their quality is as important as the rest of the optics. However, there's a silver lining even in this, since the focuser accepts 1.25" eyepieces, which is the standard for almost all the eyepieces in the world. This means that although it comes with cheap eyepieces, you don't have to settle for them, and you can spend another $50 on a quality eyepiece that would easily make up for the low quality that you start with.
Seeing Saturn through the included 5mm eyepiece plus the 3x barlow does work, but it's not the best image in the world. This is a bit beyond the capability of the telescope and it shows. The image, while large, is pretty dim. And at this magnification, it quickly slips out of view, if you can get it at all. It's also worth noting that in order to see through this eyepiece you have to rub your eyelashes against it. Better eyepieces aren't really like this. The stock alt-azimuth mount I have doesn't help much to keep the image steady, since although you have a slow-motion control that works reasonably well, it's a slow motion control that only works on the up-down axis, and any astronomical object is going to be moving out of your field of view on a diagonal. You need to develop a feather-light touch to make this telescope work, so the kit that includes the equatorial mount (as seen in the picture here) is a much better choice, even if it is more complicated to learn to use.
Some hints? If you've bought this telescope, or really think it's a good idea, then buying one or two quality eyepieces (my 15 mm Antares Plossl works very well, and I only paid about $25 US) at a later date is a good start. Weighing down the tripod for extra stability and keeping it low to the ground will also go a long way to making this an enjoyable introduction to astronomy. The most important advice is to start at low magnification and work your way up. This gives you a wider field of view to locate what you're looking for, center the image, and then move up to the next magnification.
However, they're not *all* bad. And the newtonian reflectors they sell (Like this one) are some of the best quality for what you're paying, which you must keep in mind, isn't a lot.
With this telescope you get everything you need to get started. You get the telescope itself, a tripod and mount, and some eyepieces to magnify the images you get. However, you can throw away the manual. The one I got was 1 page long and only described how to put the telescope and tripod together - which was obvious - and how to align the viewfinder. The manual didn't help much with finding stars, despite that they could have easily included a small planisphere to help you along. It also boasted that you could magnify images in the telescope to 625x, which is bogus for a few reasons. Number one is that most any object in space doesn't give you enough light to magnify its image that much. Number two is that the mirror isn't large enough for that even if you could. And number three is that magnification is no measure of a telescope's power anyway, which is why the Keck telescope (and every other telescope for that matter) is measured in inches, just for example. The size of the mirror defines its light gathering ability and how much you can magnify the image and still keep it visible.
There's a couple great things about this telescope though, and they go some distance to make up for its cheap design. Number one is that Newtonian Reflectors *are* cheap. It's far easier to manufacture a mirror that focuses than it is to make a lens of the same size that focuses. Also, cheap lenses introduce something called "Chromatic Aberration" which is a fancy word for saying it changes colours from what they really are and makes images look bad. Looking at the moon through a telescope with such lenses for instance would change its true greyish white colour to shades of purple and blue, and also produce a slight double image. This can't happen with a mirror however. Another great thing about reflectors is that they are generally much more comfortable to use, although they also turn the image upside down and backwards. This is no big deal because the viewfinder does the same anyway. You'll get used to it and it doesn't affect the image. There is no up or down in space after all. ;)
Once I got started learning to use the telescope and learning more about astronomy, it didn't take long to find out that although you can't go wrong with a mirror, Tasco sells the cheapest eyepieces possible with their telescopes. It's worth noting that eyepieces are half the telescope, since they provide all the magnifying power, and their quality is as important as the rest of the optics. However, there's a silver lining even in this, since the focuser accepts 1.25" eyepieces, which is the standard for almost all the eyepieces in the world. This means that although it comes with cheap eyepieces, you don't have to settle for them, and you can spend another $50 on a quality eyepiece that would easily make up for the low quality that you start with.
Seeing Saturn through the included 5mm eyepiece plus the 3x barlow does work, but it's not the best image in the world. This is a bit beyond the capability of the telescope and it shows. The image, while large, is pretty dim. And at this magnification, it quickly slips out of view, if you can get it at all. It's also worth noting that in order to see through this eyepiece you have to rub your eyelashes against it. Better eyepieces aren't really like this. The stock alt-azimuth mount I have doesn't help much to keep the image steady, since although you have a slow-motion control that works reasonably well, it's a slow motion control that only works on the up-down axis, and any astronomical object is going to be moving out of your field of view on a diagonal. You need to develop a feather-light touch to make this telescope work, so the kit that includes the equatorial mount (as seen in the picture here) is a much better choice, even if it is more complicated to learn to use.
Some hints? If you've bought this telescope, or really think it's a good idea, then buying one or two quality eyepieces (my 15 mm Antares Plossl works very well, and I only paid about $25 US) at a later date is a good start. Weighing down the tripod for extra stability and keeping it low to the ground will also go a long way to making this an enjoyable introduction to astronomy. The most important advice is to start at low magnification and work your way up. This gives you a wider field of view to locate what you're looking for, center the image, and then move up to the next magnification.
