Bushnell Voyager Sky Tour 70mm Reflector Telescope

by Bushnell

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 36.8 x 13.2 x 8.5 inches ; 9.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19.9 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000F4CXOC
• Item model number: 789970
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,100 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
  • #54 in Camera & Photo > Binoculars, Telescopes & Optics > Telescopes > Reflectors
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 1, 2006

Product Description

The ultimate first telescope, the new Voyager® Sky Tour gives amateur stargazers a pro-grade audio tour of the night sky. Its illuminated Smart Mount points the way as the talking handset describes constellations and planets, and keeps you engaged with entertaining facts and mythology tidbits.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Look elsewhere for a Telescope, February 20, 2011

By 

John B. Sandlin (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bushnell Voyager Sky Tour 70mm Reflector Telescope (Electronics)

I have this telescope and completely recommend buying something different (I also have other telescopes, fortunately).

The telescope itself is about average for a low end refractor. The lens isn't up to astronomical standards, and the included eyepieces are just OK. It is the mount that is completely useless.

Let me describe the points:
The Telescope is an f11 telescope, which isn't bad, but I don't believe there are any coatings on the main lens to reduce chromatic aberration, so bright objects will have colorful halos.

The eyepieces are 1.25 inch diameter and that's good. If you wanted, or already have them, you can use really good eyepieces with the telescope. With the uncoated objective lens, that might be a waste of effort.

Those are the good points.

The mount (the head on the top of the tripod) is poorly designed. There are detents in the vertical axis (called altitude) that prevent you from pointing at certain angles easily. The telescope will prefer to click up or down to the next detent. That is unacceptable. The problem doesn't exist in the horizontal axis (azimuth).

The tripod is cheaply made and may not be stable enough to use, but it was hard to tell with the limits imposed by the mount.

The telescope comes with an audio tour guide. Setting the time and date should allow you to hear a "tour" of the objects currently visible. Setting the time and date are really painful and the descriptions, while moderately interesting weren't really very informative. That might not be a problem for a raw beginner, but the raw beginner is going to have so many other issue with this telescope that this doesn't help. For anyone more than a raw beginner, the sky tour doesn't offer much.