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Product Description
Amazon.com Review
Orion's surprising little Spaceprobe 3 has been picked by independent reviewers as one of the best telescopes in its price class. Unlike similar telescopes seen in discount stores, Orion has refined the Spaceprobe 3 by paying attention to the little details, and that make this telescope a great value.
The Spaceprobe 3 comes with an unusually complete set of accessories. The package includes two very good Explorer II eyepieces (25mm and 10mm), an equatorial mount with adjustable tripod, a good red-dot finder, a student edition of "The Sky" planetarium program, and a well written manual. The package even includes the tools you'll need to assemble the telescope and align the optics.
The Spaceprobe 3 is a Newtonian reflector. That means it uses mirrors instead of lenses. Newtonians are primarily used for astronomy because the images are upside-down. Orion includes a collimation tool and good directions for aligning the mirrors. The reward for aligning the mirrors is seen in images that snap into sharp focus. My Spaceprobe 3 arrived properly aligned right out of the box.
With its Explorer II eyepieces, this telescope consistently delivers fine views. Using the 25mm eyepiece (28x magnification) the Pleiades cluster is simply wonderful, showing dozens of stars. From a rural location with a dark sky, the Orion Nebula is a big ghostly glow, and when I zoom in with the 10mm eyepiece, the Trapezium resolves into four tiny pinpoints. The double star Gamma Andromeda becomes two beads of light, one gold, the other one pale blue. Moon and planet images are crisp, with none of the false color I see in low cost refractors. When I look at the Moon I see mountains and terraced walls inside the larger craters. With the 10mm eyepiece (about 70x), Saturn's rings are sharply separated from the planet, and I can even pick out the planet's shadow on the rings.
If you point the polar axis at the North Star, the EQ-1 equatorial mount will make it easier to track the stars and planets; an AstroTrack motor will even give you hands-free tracking. A similar telescope, Orion's Spaceprobe 3 Altaz comes with an intuitive (and lighter weight) altazimuth mount, and Celestron sells essentially the same optical system with the computerized NexStar 76GT. –Jeff Phillips
Pros:
- Best in class optical performance
- Two good Explorer II eyepieces
- Complete accessory package
- Small 76mm aperture
- Upside-down terrestrial images
Product Description
Buying a first telescope used to be risky business, with more cheap models on the market than affordable quality ones. Our SpaceProbe 3 changes all that. It's not only affordable, but its optical quality will make the night sky's treasures accessible right from your backyard. The 3"-diameter primary mirror gathers enough light to reveal the faint glows of many star clusters and nebulas, as well as Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, and the stark, cratered terrain of the Moon. The aluminum Newtonian optical tube features a 1.25" rack-and-pinion focuser and two Explorer II eyepieces - a 25mm (28x) and a 10mm (70x). The included EZ Finder II finder scope helps you locate objects with ease. The SpaceProbe 3 EQ's equatorial mount allows easy manual "tracking" of objects with the turn of a knob (or use an electronic drive, sold separately, for hands-free tracking). Includes aluminum tripod with accessory tray.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
138 of 138 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this telescope for my girlfriend for Christmas. She had been wanting a telescope for sometime so I decided this would be the perfect gift. I was looking for a scope that wouldn't break the bank but wouldn't be a piece of junk either. I looked at models from Meade and Celestron but ultimately decided on this one.
I chose this over the refractor telescopes mainly because it seemed that to look into the refractor scopes would require a lot of bending over whereas this one has the eyepiece closer to eye level which makes viewing easier. Also, go for the equatorial mount, it's much easier to track things in the sky using it as we quickly found out.
Ok, so how was it? Well it came in a big box (which made the g/f crazy with this HUGE gift under the tree!) and everything was nicely and neatly packed. Everything appeard to be of high quality and good build; which is typical of Orion products from what I've read. The instruction maunal on assemble was pretty scarce. Anyone who's pretty handy at building things will be able to figure it out; but it's not the easiest thing either. This is mainly because of a lack of pictures to go along with the assembly steps. Well we got it assembled and waited for dark.
It was pretty cold and we just did some viewing of the moon and a couple of stars from the front yard. A hazy night with tons of light from the street didn't provide the best viewing conditions. That being said the moon looked amazing!! The detail was outstanding. We were able to also see the Orion Nebula and looked at other stars. I can't even imagine what it will look like on a good clear night. We're looking foward to bringing it camping with us where there will be some great viewing. The included software is also extremely useful and fun to use. The software alone is easily worth more than half of the price of this scope. Even if you hate the scope; you can learn a lot of great information from the software.
Overall this is a great scope for the amateur astronomer. It's cheap enough that it won't break the bank (good especially if you're not sure if astronomy is for you) but still plenty good enough for some great viewing. The instruction manual could be better but the quality of the software and of the scope itself more than makes up for the poor manual. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone looking for a good budget scope!
*Update* We've had this scope for about 16 months now, and it's fantastic!! We have taken it with us several places camping and have gotten to see some really great stuff. It's fairly easy to find the planets and even a galaxy or two. The only downside is that it takes up a lot of room in the car when we camp; but this would be true for any decent telescope. So not so much a problem with this one specifically, but with telescopes in general. Even to this day, we're still amazed just looking at the moon. The details and "awesomeness" of it never get old. Really looking at everything never gets old. I'm so glad we have this scope!
*December 2010 Update* I thought I would give an additional update. We have had this telescope for 4 years now. It's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough. Recently we were looking at Jupiter and could make out all of the Galilean moons as well as being able to make out red striping of the planet itself (still haven't been able to see the great spot!). All of this from the front of our yard in the city. A buddy of mine got a 7" reflector scope, and while his can see much deeper and give better resolution, this one is still tops in my book. It's easy to transport and move around and still provides great viewing. We just love taking it camping with us - get 50 miles out of the city and the "awe factor" grows exponentially. Try taking a huge super powerful scope camping, or seeing anything cool with one of the cheap toy-store ones. For price and features, you can't beat this one.
I chose this over the refractor telescopes mainly because it seemed that to look into the refractor scopes would require a lot of bending over whereas this one has the eyepiece closer to eye level which makes viewing easier. Also, go for the equatorial mount, it's much easier to track things in the sky using it as we quickly found out.
Ok, so how was it? Well it came in a big box (which made the g/f crazy with this HUGE gift under the tree!) and everything was nicely and neatly packed. Everything appeard to be of high quality and good build; which is typical of Orion products from what I've read. The instruction maunal on assemble was pretty scarce. Anyone who's pretty handy at building things will be able to figure it out; but it's not the easiest thing either. This is mainly because of a lack of pictures to go along with the assembly steps. Well we got it assembled and waited for dark.
It was pretty cold and we just did some viewing of the moon and a couple of stars from the front yard. A hazy night with tons of light from the street didn't provide the best viewing conditions. That being said the moon looked amazing!! The detail was outstanding. We were able to also see the Orion Nebula and looked at other stars. I can't even imagine what it will look like on a good clear night. We're looking foward to bringing it camping with us where there will be some great viewing. The included software is also extremely useful and fun to use. The software alone is easily worth more than half of the price of this scope. Even if you hate the scope; you can learn a lot of great information from the software.
Overall this is a great scope for the amateur astronomer. It's cheap enough that it won't break the bank (good especially if you're not sure if astronomy is for you) but still plenty good enough for some great viewing. The instruction manual could be better but the quality of the software and of the scope itself more than makes up for the poor manual. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone looking for a good budget scope!
*Update* We've had this scope for about 16 months now, and it's fantastic!! We have taken it with us several places camping and have gotten to see some really great stuff. It's fairly easy to find the planets and even a galaxy or two. The only downside is that it takes up a lot of room in the car when we camp; but this would be true for any decent telescope. So not so much a problem with this one specifically, but with telescopes in general. Even to this day, we're still amazed just looking at the moon. The details and "awesomeness" of it never get old. Really looking at everything never gets old. I'm so glad we have this scope!
*December 2010 Update* I thought I would give an additional update. We have had this telescope for 4 years now. It's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough. Recently we were looking at Jupiter and could make out all of the Galilean moons as well as being able to make out red striping of the planet itself (still haven't been able to see the great spot!). All of this from the front of our yard in the city. A buddy of mine got a 7" reflector scope, and while his can see much deeper and give better resolution, this one is still tops in my book. It's easy to transport and move around and still provides great viewing. We just love taking it camping with us - get 50 miles out of the city and the "awe factor" grows exponentially. Try taking a huge super powerful scope camping, or seeing anything cool with one of the cheap toy-store ones. For price and features, you can't beat this one.
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I was worried when I read the other reviews on this product but decided it was the best scope in the price range and went ahead. I think the other reviews do this product a disadvantage. This is a really nice telescope.
One review said it was hard to put together with little instruction. This is not the case. I has step by step instructions that are easily followed. You must pay attention to what you are doing though. Each image in the directions is clear as to which part goes up and the axis for each knob, etc. It takes time to assemble. I did it with my ten year old sister and let her try to figure each direction out and do it and it took us 1.5 hours to assemble. If an adult was doing it probably 45 min. would be about accurate.
Once it is put together it is great. I could easily find things in the sky to look at. I did have trouble aligning the red dot pointer but once on a good object and aligned it is hard to get out of alignment. Constellations are very nice to look at in the scope and the moon and some close planets are spectacular in detail. I was pleased in purchasing this as a gift for a ten year old. Also she was quick to catch on how to use it and it didn't take more than a half hour for her to be finding and adjusting the knobs to get things in focus. I would recommend this for a low-medium priced scope.
One review said it was hard to put together with little instruction. This is not the case. I has step by step instructions that are easily followed. You must pay attention to what you are doing though. Each image in the directions is clear as to which part goes up and the axis for each knob, etc. It takes time to assemble. I did it with my ten year old sister and let her try to figure each direction out and do it and it took us 1.5 hours to assemble. If an adult was doing it probably 45 min. would be about accurate.
Once it is put together it is great. I could easily find things in the sky to look at. I did have trouble aligning the red dot pointer but once on a good object and aligned it is hard to get out of alignment. Constellations are very nice to look at in the scope and the moon and some close planets are spectacular in detail. I was pleased in purchasing this as a gift for a ten year old. Also she was quick to catch on how to use it and it didn't take more than a half hour for her to be finding and adjusting the knobs to get things in focus. I would recommend this for a low-medium priced scope.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
This is my first telescope. My wife bought it for me for my birthday and the first thing I did after setting it up was took it outside and saw Jupiter! Using the 25mm and 10mm eyepieces that came with it, I was able to see the dark bands around Jupiter (better on the 10mm) and the 4 Galilean moons! I just got 2 more eyepieces for Christmas and am looking forward to trying them out. I haven't gotten any filters yet, but that's next on my wish list.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
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Published 4 months ago by R.Killian
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I bought this for my teenage daughter. It does bring the moon up close and clear, but I was hoping to see other planets in more detail. Read more
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I purchased this telescope for my 9 yr old daughter as a Christmas/Birthday present. I had no idea what to get but the reviews of this seemed like a good buy. Read more
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