Friday, June 20, 2014

Review of Black TwinStar AstroMark 80mm 16-40x Power Portable Refractor

Black TwinStar AstroMark 80mm 16-40x Power Portable Refractor Telescope
Customer Ratings: 4 stars
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If you are looking for a first telescope or need an inexpensive guide scope and you can get this scope for less than $99, then get it!

Pros: This scope, with the supplied eyepieces, shows crisp terrestrial views. The 25mm eyepiece field of view shows all of the Pleiades star cluster. The 10mm eyepiece easily shows Albireo broken out as an orange and blue double star. Also the 10mm eyepiece shows the two major cloud bands on Jupiter and all four Galilean moons. The resolution is good enough with this scope that the "seeing" conditions will dictate whether you get a mediocre or excellent viewing experience. Neither Saturn nor the Moon is up right now, but this scope should adequately show the ring system of Saturn and enough lunar detail to hold your interest for many minutes.

Cons: As with any inexpensive telescope with a tiny finder scope on a plastic mount with an inexpensive rack and pinion focuser; there will be challenges. The finder scope is difficult to align with the main scope. It took me several minutes to get it "close". The Alt-Azimuth mount does have a modest tracking ability by using adjustment screws that manually allow limited movement in both the horizontal and vertical axis. Fortunately, the scope is attached to the mount via a 1/4-20 screw receptacle so it can be mounted to any photographic tripod. All telescopes suffer from image shake. But the more expensive the scope; the smaller the shake and the faster it goes away. This inexpensive scope on the supplied mount shakes a lot, so focusing is a challenge. Focus the image with tiny adjustments then don't touch till it calms down to see if your focus adjustment was enough or too much. Using a bright star as a focusing guide is advisable.

Bottom Line: With a little practice at pointing, focusing, and guiding, this scope is fun to use and will keep you entertained for as long your patience lasts, the night remains relatively calm and clear, and your hands can still function in the cold night air. Visual astronomy is not as simple as looking through the eyepiece to get a spectacular view. Knowledge of the scope (its optics and mount) and practice using the scope makes for a spectacular view.

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