Customer Reviews

Bushnell Deep Space 525 x 3" Reflector Telescope

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an owner of this particular telescope, and a very-much-amateur astronomer I have a few tips to help you get the most out of your instrument.

First of all, this is a tool just like any others. It's simplicity can fool you. Give yourself some time to practice with it for awhile on easily-viewed objects (the moon, Jupiter, Venus, your neighbor, etc).

You will absolutely want to calibrate the finder scope. To do this, use the smallest magnification eyepiece (the 20mm) and focus on a solid object at least 200 yards away (a stop sign, a street light, whatever) and get it properly focused and dead center in the eyepiece. Then start adjusting the finder scope so it's crosshairs are dead center on the object. You should consider doing this before every viewing session.

This telescope has two mirror covers for the main tube. The directions do NOT specify this. The first is a small cap on the end of the tube. Use just this one if you're viewing in an area with a lot of ambient light. However, the whole piece it attaches to also comes out. If you'll be doing some star-hunting in a remote area free from ambient light, remove the whole thing to let as much light as possible reach the mirror. You will be stunned how much brighter your images will be!

There are two versions of this scope out there, one with a motorized mount and one without. I have the one with a manual mount on an aluminum tripod. It's a bit finicky. You might have to 'overshoot" when lining up on a target, then lock it down and wait for the scope to 'settle'. Again, practice. It might seem a bit frustrating at first but you'll get the hang of it. best do to this alone before you start showing off the night skies to your friends.

Now then, on to the eyepieces and my reccomendations:

First, get an idea of what you want to look at. You can 'sight' alongside the finder scope to get to the general area of the object you want to view. Then, use the finder scope to line up your crosshairs. Afterwards, have a peek through your eyepiece and do any fine-tuning you need to do to center it.

Always, always, always start out with the lowest magnification lens, the 20mm. This will give you 35X magnification. You'll have bright images, a wide field of view, and objects will remain in view for quite awhile.

Next stage in magnification is to insert the 20mm eyepiece into the 3X Barlow adapter. This will run up your magnification to 105X. The field of view will be noticeably narrower, but you'll have a really bright image to look at. Count on doing some more focusing. The moon looks absolutely stunning at this magnification. This will also give you more than enough magnification for Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and most double stars.

Feeling brave? Let's move up to the 4mm eyepiece. You are now running at 175X. Viewing will be signifigantly more difficult now. This level is excellent for deep-field viewing of stars and nebula, but be aware, objects will pass out of view fairly quickly (a few minutes, at best). Light levels will be much more dim and harder to focus on. You will want very good viewing conditions to take advantage.

On to 525X. Yes, it does work, but be warned. Light levels will be exceptionally dim and images will be very blurry no matter how much you fiddle with the focus. The slightest touch on the scope will set up some pretty intense shaking of the image. You will need outstanding sky conditions to do any viewing at this level. More to the point, based on Earth rotation, objects will pass from the right side of the view to the left in about 20 seconds. I'm not kidding. Do NOT bother trying to use this under less-than-ideal conditions, you will only dissapoint yourself.

All in all, it's a great scope for the money, and a great way to get familiar with what you really want in a telescope when you're ready to shell out bigger bucks. have fun with this.

Oh last but not least, invest in a star chart program. You'll be glad you did.

And remember, to KEEP.....LOOOKING....UP!

I think this telescope is pretty great because it has equatorial mount and manufactured by a company that is expert on telescopes (so you can trust it). But it is not so good because of its weight (246 pounds). Equatorial mount is a type of mounting the compensate the Earth's rotation, making the telescope easier to follow the objects in the sky. It's also a reflector, my favorite type of telescope between the two main types of optical telescopes (reflector and relractor). It's excellent for observing very faint objects, such as nubulas. Most refractors cannot observe these faint objects because it's lens absorb precious light. However, reflecters use mirrors and mirrors reflect light instead aborbing it. I recommend this telescope for begininers, intermediate, and between intermediate and experts.

I bought this telescope for my kids and they absolutely loved it! While it takes some getting used to, it's wonderful for looking at simple things like the moon. The important thing I found was to read the instructions. Don't immediately start plugging in lenses!

All in all, I would recommend this to a family that hasn't had a telescope before and would like to use a simple one first.

Excellent starter telescope for kids! Not very technical. Good for viewing moon and stars. Can catch some planets on a clear night. Good jumping off point to a more complicated scope.

Don't waste your money. This thing is worse than a toy telescope. The finder scope is very difficult to adjust/calibrate. You would think that for an extra twenty five cents they could have included four screws instead of three to make it a lot easier to adjust. But this device is a marvel of cheapness over quality.

The instruction book, (I'll come back to that), says it has hardwood legs. In reality it has flimsey aluminum legs, that appear to have the structural integrity of old beer cans. They can not be folded up for storage without removing the "accessories tray", which is useless.

If you sneeze on this thing it vibrates for several minutes. The eyepiece lenses were very dirty, right out of the box. The instructions are a joke, with lots of errors in English and non-existent directions for adjusting the finder scope.

Overall Bushnell should be ashamed to have their name on this sorry, sad piece of junk. I would give it zero stars if I could.