Customer Reviews

Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian Telescope

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you look at my review for the XT6 I gave that instrument 5 stars but cautioned readers not to buy it. At that time I said that, given a chance, I might jump up to an XT8. I got the chance, and I grabbed it. Here is what I learned.

The 6 has a slightly longer focal length. This means that if your main purpose for viewing is to see object within our solar system, i.e. planets, moon, etc. It won't make much difference which scope you purchase. the 6" is cheaper and lighter. Solar system objects are bright and look good at about 200X, which either scope can deliver on a good night and neither can deliver on a bad night.

But I don't look mainly at solar system objects. I like to look at deep sky objects, like nebula, galaxies, double stars, etc. For these, the more aperture, the better. 8" is notably more aperture than 6". It is true that the 8" weighs more than the 6. I am 52 years old. I can lug either around my yard, but I added a cart for the 8". My yard is nearly an acre and I would rather pull it around than carry it. In my earlier review I said that I might keep my XT6 as a travel scope. That wasn't necessary. The 8" is easy take apart, place in its bag, and carry to other locations. The bag is necessary for travel. I did keep my 6". I began teaching seminars and now have 5 scopes. I regularly use reflectors, refractors, composites, EQ mounts, alt./az. mounts, and dobsonians. The XT8 is my favorite. I think I'll keep this one for awhile.

I've tried the goto scopes. They are handy, but given the choice of spending my money on electronics or aperture, I'll go with the aperture. I have some scopes with EQ mounts. Given the choice of spending my money on a fancy mount or aperture, I'll take aperture and the simple dobsonian mount. EQ mounts are only necessary for photography. This scope is about as big as an inexpensive portable scope gets and about as small as a serious visual scope gets. It is a great beginning and intermediate scope.

Ordered this, a 13% moon filter, and 3x barlow. Took longer to unpack and take inventory of the parts than it did to put it together. Easy instructions and certainly well protected for shipping. Mount is easy to swing but not easy enough to get free wheeling.

Main mirror needed slight adjustment which took about 2 minutes to fix. Alignment with spotting scope was equally as easy. Overall, did not have any problems or any issues that weren't easily addressed by the instructions.

Did my first test tonight. I live a few miles east of Philadelphia and within a 1/4 mile of a ridiculously lit up Super Walmart. And the only place I could do a test was in my drive way between houses on a busy suburb street. We got 10 inches of snow last night and this was the only place that was solid.

Given my crappy location full of light pollution, my only real expectation tonight was to verify that the spotting scope and the main scope were in alignment. So I pointed at Orion's Nebula (M43) with my spotting scope and then took a look through the factory supplied 25mm eye piece with no barlow.

WOW!!! Even with my crappy location, M43 was amazing!!! I could easily see the nebula and make out the hues and colors. Equally amazing, my spotting scope and main scope were dead on!!

I then wheeled the scope towards Saturn which was only a few degrees over my neighbor's roof, a real no-no when it comes to stargazing. Well, if this was crappy conditions, all I can say is WOW!!! It was just as amazing. Even though the rings are tough to make out since the rings are right on in terms of their plane, it was still easy to see as well as plenty of moons circling. WOW!!!

Then tried the 13% moon filter on the crescent moon. WOW!!! Wish I could describe it better, but the first peek at this stuff is just amazing!! I cannot wait to get out this weekend to rural area and look at this stuff. I'm giving it 5 stars now simply because the product's quality right of the box was top shelf and what you can view out of it is simply amazing even with my awful light polluted location.

And even though I was only out testing for a few minutes, my neighbors wondered what I was doing and when I gave them a peek at Saturn, the ooooohs and aaaahs were priceless!!!

If this thing somehow broke by tommorrow, I feel like I already got my money's worth.

Just bought this as a gift for my high-school sophomore daughter. I spent a lot of time comparison shopping on-line. Ordered it via Amazon, and it arrived in just a few days. Two boxes. Took me a bit longer to set it up than others who have posted here, but screwing together the base pieces was fairly easy, and then mounting the tube to the base was a snap. I like the handle, as it makes it more portable, although it is still bulky and I am still working on the best method for carrying it outdoors each night for our family sky-watching. Anyway, I REALLY like it so far. We bought the 3x Barlow lens too. We started using it during the new moon phase, and Saturn was out. Very cool to see Saturn's rings so clearly. Then last night we used it to look at the half-moon, and all I can say is...WOW! I felt like I was orbiting the moon and looking down from 60 miles. You can see shadows of individual craters, and the clarity is amazing. Very crisp image. The 3x Barlow really enhances the view, and really magnifies well.

I also like the way you can rotate and pitch the tube. I didn't want to buy a 'scope with a tri-pod because of the extra weight and I didn't want to pay for the tri-pod. The base that comes with the xt8 is basic, but very functional. I think it works well, and I think it will be easy to carry it in our minivan out to the high country where the light pollution is reduced. So far we are very happy with this purchase.

The 8"f6 Dobsonian telescope is popular for good reason. It is simple to manufacture and easy to use. It is car portable, gives good views of planets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies. It is small enough to give wide field views (as wide as 2.28* with a 41mm Panoptic eyepiece), and large enough to reveal the rings of Saturn, cloud bands on Jupiter, and high magnification views of double stars.

This scope by Orion has better than average optics, and provides surprisingly good views of deep sky objects. Under a dark sky I have observed four galaxies in the Virgo cluster through this telescope.

To provide the best possible views, all Newtonian telescopes require collimnation, so tools for this are required. The Kendrick Laser Collimnator is excellent.

Finding deep sky objects with a Dobsonian can be difficult, especially in light polluted skies. You may want to consider the Orion SkyQuest XT8i IntelliScope Dobsonian Telescope with Object Locator. This allows you to spend less time searching and more time observing. Otherwise, a 7x50 straight through finder can help.

You will want a low power wide field eyepiece (32mm-40mm) for finding objects, a medium power eyepiece (12mm-20mm) for deep sky, and a high magnification eyepiece (5mm-8mm) for observing planets and "lunar orbit".

I've been interested in astronomy for most of my life and finally decided to purchase a telescope. I spent a while doing my research and settled on the Orion SkyQuest XT8 due to its size, high marks for quality materials, and its price.

As others have noted, it took longer to unpack and verify nothing was missing than it took to assemble the base and mount the scope. Unfortunately, I did have to spend some time aligning the primary mirror (called collimating) and then sighting in the spotting scope. Nothing terribly complicated, but it did take a little bit of patience. The instructions on collimating the mirrors are included and were quite clear.

The telescope comes with one 1.25" 25mm Plossl eyepiece that, when paired with this scope, gives a magnification of 48x. The eyepieces can easily be swapped out and the telescope can accept either 1.25" or 2" eyepieces.

Once I finally had everything assembled and aligned I got it outside and set up for a first viewing. I live in a suburban area with moderate light pollution in the skies (mostly low on the horizon) near Pittsburgh, PA. I was concerned that this might prevent me from getting good views, but that was not the case. My very first target was Saturn, which was fairly close to the sky glow of light pollution. I was blown away by the clarity! With just the basic, included eyepiece (25mm Plossl) I was easily able to see Saturn and its rings, despite them being nearly edge on at the time. I put a 2x Barlow lens into the eyepiece and the magnified view allowed me to see faint banding in the atmosphere, and a tiny point of light that might have been Titan (one of Saturn's moons). I was just speechless by how easily I was able to use the telescope.

The next target for viewing was the moon, which was nice and high above the horizon, visible as a waxing crescent. I was able to pick out individual craters and mountains, and the sharpness of the image made it feel almost as though I was much closer to the moon instead of looking through a telescope.

In short, if you're looking for an excellent telescope for a beginner or a more experienced sky watcher, you'd be hard pressed to go wrong here.

The hard part was deciding whether to get the 8 or 10 inch. These are very basic telescopes, but very usable. Of course I would like the biggest aperture, but I need to transport the thing in the trunk of a Toyota Corolla. The 8 inch fits like a glove so the 10 would have been a disaster, unless you drive a bigger vehicle. Also, the weight is substantial if you have to carry it any distance. I got the padded bag which really helps so you can carry the base with the other hand and balance the load some. I'm a big guy and I wouldn't want to carry this too far. Having said all that, I love the scope. The set up takes a couple of seconds after you have put it together the first time. Just drop it in the base and pull the springs down. That's it. It's a challenge to find objects in the sky when you are a beginner, so don't worry about magnification at this point. Just make sure you align the spotting scope before you go out the first night and have fun.

This telescope is amazing! Finally took it out on a clear night in Florida, I checked out Jupiter and I was astonished. The detail in a slightly light polluted sky. I was blown away. I would suggest getting a barlow lens, i went with the 3x multiplier and i decided to also get a zoom lens(8mm-23mm). I am extremely happy with this telescope, it was my 1st investment in one since my dad bought me one when i was little. Oh yeah, get a moon filter too, your eyes will appreciate it.

Telescope arrived before the listed arrival date and in perfect condition. Assembly was fairly simple and all the necessary tools were included in the box. The collimation was spot on from the factory and alignment of the spotting scope was a breeze. The included instructions were easy to follow and thorough. I purchased a barlow (2X), a zoom eyepiece and a lunar filter for some initial viewing while I decide on a matched filter and eyepiece set. The quality of everything I received from Orion was amazing for the prices they list. Suffering from the new telescope curse, I have not had a single night of good seeing where I was not at work or so sick I couldn't crawl out of bed. Undaunted, I have taken the scope out on several extremely humid and partially cloudy nights and been amazed by the views this scope captured in spite of the weather and inside city limits! The great red spot on Jupiter is clearly visible in spite of lingering haze and I have been able to see two shadow transits so far, one of Europa and one of Io. This is an amazing scope for the money and much easier to use than my matsukov-casslegrain. The astronomy class at my local junior college uses Orion dob's (two 10" and a 12") and my roommate (who is taking the class) amazed his classmates by telling them how cheap these scopes are. The value (quality per dollar) simply cannot be beaten. Highly recommended.

I purchased a SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian, a 10 mm Orion Highlight Plossl eyepiece, and a 1.25" 13% moon filter. My 9-year old daughter and I are new to stargazing and I'm very pleased with what we've accomplished so far using this set-up. Locating galaxies and nebula has been easier than I expected, plus we've had stunning views of the moon. The planets are still smaller than I expected, I guess, but we could see the rings of Saturn and one of its moons quite clearly last weekend. The only down-side to this telescope is that it's quite heavy and cumbersome to maneuver through narrow doorways, down steps, etc. I have stronger-than-average arms for a 40+ year old woman, and I manage OK with moving it in and out of the house - it seems to tolerate being knocked against door frames - but if I were shorter or weaker, I'd probably wish that I'd bought the 6-inch version instead.

I bought this telescope after debating between the XT6 and the XT8. Overall, I could not be happier with my purchase. The extra light-gathering power of the XT8 makes images crisp and extremely detailed. Furthermore, the availability of lenses is a big plus. This telescope is AMAZING for viewing the moon and all planets, along with the Messier objects throughout the sky. To sum it up, the extra money you spend does light-years (hehe) for performance.
*Pros: Extremely clear, powerful, incredible quality, ease of use, and availability of accessories
*Cons: Portability