Customer Reviews

Orion Classic 12x30 Brass Hand Telescope

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

 

 

This well made hand telescope is a wonderful gift to give your Pirate loving child. I priced toy scopes and this one and found that for the price, this one will last much longer and may mean more to your child as he or she gets older. It has a nice weight to it, and has a handy little carrying case. Wonderful for trips to grandparents, or for trips to places like the mountains. My son loves it!

This telescope looks good, and functions reasonably well for the price. On the plus side the sections slide smoothly, the brass is coated to prevent tarnishing, it is a nice handy size to put in a pack.

The focusing section with the eyepiece can be a little hard to get just right. The sections, while sliding smoothly, have a bit of slop in the fitting and thus the telescope tends to sag just a little when used. It isn't much, but it bothered me so I disassembled it and changed the felt slide pads to some slightly longer and very slightly thicker pads and that fixed the problem.

The main lens suffers from slight Curvature of Field (objects at the edges of the field of view can't be brought into focus at the same time with objects in the center of the field of view). But since you're looking at the things in the middle anyway, and the error is fairly small and only affects the very edges, this isn't much of a problem for casual use. In fact I'm not sure most casual users would notice it at all.

This 12 power magnification is about the limit for a useful hand-held telescope, any more and the slight jiggling of your hands (and thus the image) when you hold it would begin to become annoying.

It isn't a really high-quality telescope, but the overall quality is appropriate for the price, and I'm glad I got it. I carry it in my daypack whenever fishing or hiking.

My grandson really loves his telescope...even stole out of his bed one night..to look at the stars.
It is a really nice telescope. Jn

This is an exellent buy if this is your first brass spyglass. For being so sheap this sure is good quality, every part of it is verry accurate. I really do have seen a lot worse. People who do not CARE to examine and learn for themselves OR are not used to handle and use spyglasses may have some problem getting the focus right. In any case the focus is really sharp when you do get it right.

You need to twist the smallest tube to change the focus depth. Pracise make perfect!

Even thou its not verry big in size i found that it was as "big" and heavy as i would tolerate for easy carrying and easy use in a larp. You may carry it in a small beltbag, and it fits nicely in your palm.

The only bad thing about it was the fake-leather. I bought it to use on a Pirate LARP (Live Action Role Playing) and i had to remove the plastic "leather" and sew on a new real piece of darkbrown leather myself.
Besides this, modern brass items are often lacquerd with a special clear brass protective lacquer, witch makes it impossible to corrode. I wandted that antique feeling since im using it on larps. So in order to get that old look to it I took everything apart (total disensembling), and polished off the lacquer using a grinding machine with a verry fine polishing rondell, and reassembled it. Afer two months it looked like a movie prop, corroded (darkened) and beautiful.
However I do not recommend anyone to do this UNLESS you are a craftsman who knows how to work metals and have basic (proffessional) polishing skills. If you are going to do this anyway, be extra careful to remove the glass parts so that you dont accidentally polish them! And be careful not to grind away any metal or you may destroy it completley.

There are more than five, exactly the same, spyglasses here on Amazon.com they look exactly the same and comes with the same fake-leather carrying case. So im leaving this rating on a fiew of them. They are all manufactured in the same place, probably china, and distributed to the different vendors.

I hope my rewiew was any help to you!
Have a Good Larp!
:D

We live on a rooftop apartment and have a great view of the city. Also purchased a pair of binoculars.

I love the look and feel of the scope. Just seems like a quality heirloom like someone else mentioned in another review.

I had a little difficulty focusing when it first arrived, then I realized that the telescope had not fully extended.

We've had a lot of fun with this little scope and I'm happy with the purchase.