Ordered this, a thirteenpercent moon filter, and 3x barlow. Took longer to unpack and take inventory in the parts than it did to put it together. Uncomplicated instructions and surely well protected for shipping. Mount is easy to swing but not effortless enough to acquire free wheeling.
Major mirror needed slight adjustment which took about 2 minutes to fix. Alignment with spotting scope was equally as quick. Overall, did not have any problems or any issues that weren’t easily addressed by the instructions.
Did my primary check tonight. I live a handful of miles east of Philadelphia and within a 1/4 mile of a ridiculously lit up Super Walmart. Plus the only location I could do a check 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 spot that was solid.
Given my crappy area full of light pollution, my only actual expectation tonight was to verify that the spotting scope as well as the major 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 area, M43 was awesome!!!! I could quickly see the nebula and make out the hues and colors. Equally wonderful, my spotting scope and principal scope were dead on!!!
I then wheeled the scope towards Saturn which was only a couple of degrees over my neighbor’s roof, a real no-no when it comes to stargazing. Properly, if this was bad conditions, all I can say is WOW!!! It was just as remarkable. Even though the rings are tough to make out because the rings are appropriate on in terms of their plane, it was still simple to see in addition to a lot of moons circling. WOW!!!
Then tried the thirteenpercent moon filter on the crescent moon. WOW!!!! Wish I could describe it far better, but the first peek at this stuff is just amazing!!! I cannot wait to have out this weekend to rural location and appear at this stuff. I’m giving it 5 stars now basically because the product’s quality right from the box was top shelf and what you’ll be able to view out of it is basically incredible even with my awful light polluted location.
And even though I was only out testing for a number of minutes, my neighbors wondered what I was performing and when I gave them a peek at Saturn, the ooooohs and aaaahs were priceless!!?!!
If this factor somehow broke by tommorrow, I really feel like I already got my money’s worth.
click here to buy it on amazon
Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian Telescope

