Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Nice Little Family Scope, August 12, 2004
I've had an Orion StarBlast for over a year now, and even though I have larger, more sophisticated telescopes, it is the one I use most. The setup is instantaneous though, like other reflectors, it takes some time to cool down on cold nights. It's easily portable, and works well as a grab `n go. The short focal length makes it excellent for low power, wide field views of deep sky objects and the moon. Through the StarBlast, I have observed (to name a few) the Ring Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy (along with its two neighboring galaxies), Galaxies M81 and M82, countless open clusters, the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas, The Eagle Nebula, the nebula in Orion, comets NEAT and LINEAR. Jupiter's belts and moons are apparent at higher power, as are Staurn's rings and the phases of Venus and Mercury. During the last opposition, I could see Martian polar ice caps. During the last lunar eclipse, I had no trouble taking digital photographs through this instrument.
This is the same fast optics formula as the Edmund AstroScan and Bushnell Voyager bowling ball. The StarBlast is far and away the best of the three, but as with the others, the high power views are soft. That feature is not a problem for those of us primarily interested in deep sky. Planetary views could be more detailed, and my own StarBlast won't split the double double in suburban skies. (Orion's somewhat longer 4.5" f 8 dobsonian is more suited to these subjects.) In addition, most globular clusters present as unresolved fuzzy balls, as they will in any instrument of this aperture.
For the price, though, you can't really beat the StarBlast. It works well as a family telescope, or as a casual scope for someone interested but not obsessed by astronomy. It is small, inexpensive, and intuitive enough to be handled by children. It also works nicely for crusty old guys like me who have bigger hardware, but just don't feel like moving it every night.
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Kids Scope, February 15, 2005
I agree with all the previous reviews. I've owned a number of telescopes. In all honesty, I never planned on getting this scope, but I changed my mind the first time I looked through one at star party. As some of the reviews have mentioned this little guy isn't really designed for high power views. However it does a decent enough job with it's 6mm eyepiece (75x) which lets you see Saturn's rings. Where this scope shines is wide field objects like the Pleiades, which are too big to be seen in a normal telescope. I believe a previous reviewer mentioned a jerky motion when turning the telescope. I was able to minimize this by taking the lazy susan type base apart and spraying Pledge furniture polish on the laminate surface to lessen friction.
The biggest "con" this scope has is that it needs to be set on top of a table in order to get the eyepiece up to a comfortable height. However this telescope still blows away anything I've seen in Costco, Wallmart, etc.
One thing you should be aware of is you really have to go somewhere pretty dark away from all lighting for this and any other telescope to achieve it's best views. Ideally somewhere out in the country as far away as possible from street lighting will let you enjoy much better views.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great starter scope for kids or adults, April 27, 2004
By A Customer
At 4.5 inch aperture the Starblast gathers a reasonable amount of light, has a useful robust mount and includes 17mm and 6mm eyepieces (x26 and x75 magnification). The Starblast also comes with a simple red-dot finder to make it easy to aim the scope. My ten-year old (with a normal ten-year old boy's attention span) is able to find objects such as Orion's Nebula, star clusters, and faint galaxies two-million light years away (Messier objects 81 & 82) without difficulty. Planets also look great.
There is a saying that the best telescope is the one you use the most. This relatively cheap and functional scope arrives already assembled and ready to go. It can be taken outside for a few minutes viewing with no preparation or effort required.
The only caveats with the Starblast are:
(1) it is a reflecting scope and does not invert the image to the right way up. This is unimportant for astronomy but makes it not useful for terrestrial viewing.
(2) it needs to be placed on a table or other object as the sturdy stand is very short.
(3) although the scope is not heavy and is easy to carry outside, the mount does not fold away like a tripod in a case and so the scope is not really designed to travel.
(4) it has a short focal length. A consequence of this is that, although with 4.5 inches of aperture you have enough light to get x200 magnification, to get these higher magnification views you would need to use an eyepiece with very limited eye relief i.e. a small opening making it less comfortable to use.
(5) I didn't find the supplied software easy to use compared to other programs. However this is not required to enjoy the scope and there are a wealth of websites that provide information on what's observable in the night sky.
To help you get started and find objects that will excite you and your family, refer to some of the beginner's guides on websites or get "Turn Left at Orion".
We added the following accessories; solar filter which allows viewing of sunspots; a moon filter allowing study of the moon without excessive glare; x2 Barlow lens effectively extending the supplied eyepieces from x26 and x75 to x52 and x150 respectively. This significantly increased the overall cost but greatly added to the versatility.
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