Tasco Spacestation 114x500mm Reflector ST with Variable LED Red Dot Finderscope Telescope

by Tasco

Product Features

• Single Fork Arm Altazimuth Mount
• Red Dot Starpointer Finderscope
• Adjustable Aluminum tripod

Product Description

Tasco space station telescope featuring a cosmically inspired new design. Its variable LED electronic red Dot Finderscope takes you to to visit your favorite constellation in a flash by quickly finding any object in the sky. with an LED electronic red dot finer-scope, 500-Millimeter focal length and 114-Millimeter objective mirror, the space station 114ST is ideal for any astronomer. Accessories include, Tascos sky watch CD-Rom, 3x Barlow lens, moon map, moon filter.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 35 x 15 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000PHNXHA
• Item model number: 49114500
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #322,170 in Sports & Outdoors (See Top 100 in Sports & Outdoors)
  • #83 in Electronics > Camera & Photo > Binoculars, Telescopes & Optics > Telescopes > Reflectors

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cheap and very poorly supported, yet basically functional, July 5, 2011

By 

P. Schmidt (Chicago, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tasco Spacestation 114x500mm Reflector ST with Variable LED Red Dot Finderscope Telescope (Electronics)

I have to confess that I am not a star gazer, and don't watch birds, ships at sea, high flying UFOs, or anything else at a distance. When I was a little kid my parents gave me a TASCO refractor telescope that was probably about as powerful as a set of binoculars. Still, I found occasional use for it throughout my childhood. But here I am in late middle age, and have done very nicely without a telescope for at least the last 40 odd years (can't recall when I lost or threw away the childhood one).

I has given a gift card recently which had to be redeemed from a very limited selection of items in an online store. Golf bags, mantle clocks, carry-on luggage, cheap jewelry, you get the picture. A TASCO reflector telescope was the only thing I could possibly use, so I selected it (in other words, I did not buy it from Amazon).

When it arrived, it was in a box big enough to hide a couple of bodies, and I started to get excited....this might actually be a pretty serious telescope after all! But no, inside was a much smaller box, and from the flimsy Chinese cardboard onwards, the cheapness of this telescope was apparent.

The 'manual', while not in 'chinglish', was only marginally useful. It covers three models of telescope, two of which are refractor models, and the third being this reflector one. The photos and illustrations vary from pretty clear and useful to too small, vague, poorly photographed, or otherwise difficult to figure out. A number of assembly steps were not assisted by the manual. Some illustrations were not clear as to which model they were showing. Some things I was just left guessing about. There are parts left over that are not mentioned or illustrated in the manual, and at least one thing it mentions that I could not find.

The tripod is actually not too bad, and there are some parts that are metal. But a lot is plastic that should be metal.

The mechanism for making scope adjustments while in use is quite poor, and will frustrate most users, I expect.

The writers of the manual also seem to be making a LOT of assumptions about the user's foreknowledge of telescopes in general and using them for astronomy in particular. Since this scope is targeted at beginners, this is an amazing case of bad thinking on the part of TASCO.

The scope comes with three eyepieces, each with a different magnification, 20, 50, 125 when installed in the scope. An included Barlow lens can be inserted between the scope and the selected eyepiece to provide a 3x magnification once you have the thing you are looking at centered in the field of view.

In general, the optics are not terrible, but it seems that mine has some alignment problems, probably caused by poor assembly.

The 'laser' viewfinder (a.k.a. 'starfinder') is a secondary assembly that mounts on the body of the scope. It consists of a small screen which you look through to spot the star or other object you want to view through the scope. A red dot is electronically projected onto the screen, and you tilt and rotate the scope until the red dot appears to be right on top of the desired object. It is adjustable with small knobs to up/down and left/right, like a rifle's telescopic sight. Another knob allows you to adjust the brightness of the red dot. This all works pretty well, although it is very cheaply made and seems unstable and easily breakable. There must be a battery in it, but I have not discovered how to get AT that battery in case it needs to be replaced. The manual does not mention a battery at all.

The eyepiece tube adjusts in and out by a focus knob. On my scope, the tube was jammed and would only move slightly. I tried to reach TASCO about this, but neither the manual nor the TASCO website were helpful...no place to email, no online information, no phone number. So I took it all apart and fixed it by trimming some plastic and readjusting the mounting hardware.

The screws that secure the eyepieces are mis-drilled, and are total rubbish. Better hope that gravity holds the eyepieces in place.

The eyepieces each come with covered plastic storage cups. The largest of the three eyepieces will not fit into its storage cup. None of the storage cups will fit into the tray provided on the tripod, so you have to take them all out and put them in the tray, where one might be included to leave them, gathering dust, in between uses.

Note that being a reflector scope, the image appears at an angle in the eyepiece. This is not a problem for looking at stars and planets, but for viewing anything on Earth, the tilted image will be irritating. Look elsewhere for that type of equipment.

I had a few questions for TASCO about this scope, but their website provided no way to reach them. They want you to take everything to the selling dealership for service. Since this scope is aimed at low end consumers, this means that you have to rely on Walmart, K-mart, etc for technical service. Good luck with that. In my case, the selling dealership is the gift card warehouse, and I bet the minimum wage people there, working to pack boxes for shipment, know all about telescopes and their adjustment and service. When a company abdicates responsibility for the service and support of their product like this, it spells BAD COMPANY, KEEP AWAY.

I finally sent a letter by snail mail to the only address I could find, and months later I have had no reply.

I searched online and discovered that TASCO, while once a venerable maker of entry-level optics, is no longer an actual manufacturer. Apparently TASCO is just a brand name now, and some small concern somewhere slaps the name on various low end products, without any support personnel available. Hence their goal of throwing everything back at the retailer.

There are a number of much better companies out there selling similar type scopes for not a ton of money. Unless you really want to save pennies, I would recommend going with them instead of TASCO, based on this experience with them.

3.0 out of 5 stars It's great for the moon, not much else, January 1, 2012

By 

msp1967 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tasco Spacestation 114x500mm Reflector ST with Variable LED Red Dot Finderscope Telescope (Electronics)

I actually did not pay for this product but selected it as an award for years of service at work. I was excited to see just how big the box was and to get it set up.

The reflector quality when viewing the moon is awesome, with the barlow lens attached it is very good however that is where the good news ends.

You can make out shapes of the planets but that's about it. Trying to view objects such as the Orion Nebula or the Andromeda Galaxy all you can make out is a fuzzy blur. If you try to adjust the scope you overshoot the objects due to how sticky the mount can get. I've tried using various products to improve that but so far no luck.

If you get this scope I would recommend replacing the three supplied eye pieces with a higher quality eyepiece as the ones that ship with this are of low quality.

1.0 out of 5 stars Junk, April 1, 2011

By 

Eeyore's Dad - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tasco Spacestation 114x500mm Reflector ST with Variable LED Red Dot Finderscope Telescope (Electronics)

You get what you pay for. Got it as a gift and it doesn't even work good as a "coat hanger" Very CHEAP and has very poor directions! Stay away from this piece of junk!