Orion SkyScanner 100mm TableTop Reflector Telescope - Compact & Portable Beginner Astronomy Telescope Ideal for Adult and Family Stargazing

My first telescope which I chose from reviews for less than $200. Easy to set up and use from the well-packaged box. Had to watch a few easy-to-find videos on youtube about the assembly and viewing to make sure I did it right and got some tips - made it much simpler. Got the telescope to see what I could view of mars while it was closer to moon, still, was only a small disc not even worth seeing with my vision (slightly blurry with glasses on and off). Glasses were actually in the way. According to manual, I need to look into additional eyepieces that have “longer eye relief” when wearing glasses. Also, may need that for viewing other small (far away) planets such as jupiter and saturn with glasses on. Next was the view of the moon which was a late riser on 08/01/18. Waited till after midnight to see it which was 3/4ths full on a clear night. Got a great view of it and look forward to a full moon. I put my iphone 5 camera up to lens as best and as steady as I could, posted couple pics. Used 10mm eyepiece with 2x Barlow (sold separately). Moon was bright, but was able to view without a moon filter (sold separately). If it were a full moon on a clear night, may need a moon filter with that Barlow 2x. Have not looked at Jupiter and saturn yet. I am 56. Could see moon very clearly without glasses (2.0 R/2.75 L, Farsighted). First-timer seeing the moon so close in a telescope was like wow! & woughhhhh!!! & awesome & freakish! I am only 5’2 so sitting on ground with telescope in front on ground made scope too long for me to lean over to look into eyepiece without nudging it out of focus. Was easier and steadier for me to sit on ledge of cushioned lawn chair with a steady foot stool in front of me with telescope on it. Did not use EZ Finder 2 Reflex Sight. I will later get a 4mm eyepiece and a Barlow 3x in hopes for larger/closer views of Saturn, etc.Very satisfied for the price and excited about more viewing. Will enjoy this as long as it lasts. Praise God for telescopes and outer space wonders!

It actually fits into a backpack of the proper size and it's light enough to take on an evening hike. You can take this with you camping and not worry about losing a ton of money if it get damaged (great for kids). This and a decent pair of binoculars will cover a lot of ground... uhmmm... that is to say... "sky".

I live in urban areas in Hong Kong under heavily light polluted sky and the faintest stars I can see with naked eye is only up to 1.5mag. This is my review based on 4 to 5 nights of usage after receiving the scope for 2 weeks.The package is double boxed and arrived safe. Tested the collimation and it's only slightly off center after traveling half of the Earth to reach home.This is the first Newtonian scope I own so I take some time to take it all apart to understand how every part works, adjusted the collimation, made small improvements such as painting the edge of the secondary mirror black to help improving contrast and added setting circles to both axis to help "push to" objects quickly.I prefer not to use the red dot finder even it fully works because for bright objects, putting in a 25mm eyepiece (from my previous scope) got a magnification of 16X which is already a good "finder scope" range of magnification for me. And for any dimmer objects, red dot won't help much so I better locate it using an Phone app + the setting circles.The scope and mount is very light weight compared with any other 4 inch telescope setup so I can easily bring it out to any location just packing everything in a single backpack, and carry a photo tripod on my hand. Setup / pack up only take less than 5 minutes so it's very efficient.This is my second telescope, the first one I owned is Nexstar 4SE with a similar aperture of 102mm but a much longer focal length of 1325mm, and is a Maksutov-Cassegrain.As I compared the image quality with my old scopes which is also 4 inch, I can say both of their optical performance are similar under the same magnifications. I had viewed the moon which is bright and clear, the stars as pinpoints with slight diffraction spikes for those brighter ones, and even Neptune can be spotted as a dim blue star light dot. The provided eyepiece are OK and very light weight but provide up to 40X magnification only. So later I'm planning to purchase a better quality one with 4.7mm to push up the magnification to 85X so that I can continue my review on Mars / Jupiter / Saturn.For a 4 inch scope, I can say it's performance is pretty comparable with any other more expensive 4 inch refractors / catadioptrics and I'll recommend it if you know what to be expected for a 4 inch scope.

When I was a kid, I had a Sears 3" refractor. I actually got good use out of that scope. I was able to see the rings of Saturn and the spot on Jupiter as well as its Galilean moons. Fast-forward to my early-/mid- adulthood (with a 7 y/o son), and I wanted to get a scope with a larger primary diameter. Light research on the web showed me that reflectors were the way to go. One improvement that I was looking forward to was the absence of chromatic aberration. To tell you the truth, I don't know if it's just that I haven't used my refractor in a long time, but the SkyScanner blows the 3" refractor away in clarity. Clearly the increased aperture improves the view greatly.The mount on this scope is also a joy to use compared to the Sears refractor. The Sears scope had thumb screws and support rods that could barely keep the scope aimed on your target. The SkyScanner has a grippable knob to turn the stabilizing screw --- easier to tighten and loosen.As bonus, the mount of the SkyScanner has a tripod-mount hole. I put a Dolica quick-mount plate on it. This makes it easy to mount and unmount from my Dolica tripod, which I also use for photography. The SkyScanner's rubber feet are taller than the quick-mount plate, so I can leave the plate attached when not mounted on the tripod. Dolica has very affordable tripods that are very stable and configurable into various heights and base widths. I set the scope and tripod at a height that is good for both my son and me.Get the Orion 05662 1.25-Inch 13 Percent Transmission Moon Filter (Black) for looking at the moon.