Customer Reviews

Orion StarMax 102mm EQ Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope

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I've owned one of these for a couple of years now, and find it to be a pretty good scope for the price. The Mak-Cass design provides a tremendous focal length (1300mm)which means that you can attain alot of magnification per eyepiece used. Alot of magnification... This scope does a good job resolving detail on the Moon and gives decent views of the planets, but it's no rich-field scope- not by any means. I get much better views of nebulae and glalxies through large aperture binoculars. One just doesn't get alot of light thru this tube. Increasingly powerful eyepieces will dim the view exponentially. But this is true of any scope, so don't let that keep you away from this great little scope! It's a snap to set up and the Equatorial mount it comes with is very good. This is a scope which requires very little tinkering with, so you will carry it outside alot more than some bulky, complicated scope. More time under the stars is what it's all about. The Sirius 25mm Plossl eyepiece it comes with will give you 52x in this scope. Best to get some others so you can vary your magnification. Orion offers the back-yard astronomer good quality for the price. It's no Questar, but it's not $7,000.00 either!!! A good
Newtonian reflector with 6 inches of aperture or more will give you better deep sky resolution, but those are big, heavy tubes and folks find lots of excuses for nor hauling them outside onto the back porch on a cold night. The best scope for most of us is one that we'll use alot, and this scope is super-portable! Dark skies, a good planisphere and a cool scope like this one and you're ready learn about your universe. Saturn is overhead tonight, and it looks AWESOME...