This telescope is adequate for seeing the moon in great detail, very small images of planets, and some detail in nebulae. However, don’t expect to see huge colorful gas clouds filling the viewing field of the eyepiece…I naievely thought I’d be able to see at least a smaller image of those beautiful Hubble-style nebula shots, but later learned that almost no amateur scope can deliver that kind of viewing. The best Telescope Reviews
You have to be willing to spend thousands to get that, and get into astrophotography to boot, with a specially mounted scope that follows the stars with the earth’s orbit so you can expose the film long enough to capture colors. However, we’ve had fun with the StarBlast, and the Orion company has excellent customer service & quick shipping.
FYI, you can usually get free shipping on “starter scopes” if you order directly from Orion (telescope.com), and despite what their website says they can work with you on shipping small-moderate size items to PO Boxes if you call them.
I have been interested in astronomy for over 50 years and am familiar with quite a few amateur level scopes. Never had a chance to view with the “big boys” but I do know the difference between a toy and an instrument and this scope is not a toy.. I in fact bought this scope as a gift for a quite remarkable 5 year old thinking that it might spark some interest. Prior to giving it to her, I took it for a test run. Within 10 minutes of taking it out of the box it was ready to go. The tabletop model is extremely to move around and setup is a breeze. It uses a battery powered red dot finder rather than a finder scope but this was basically a blessing.
The alignment is proper on. If the red dot is on target, the object is visible. The night I introduced the youngster to the scope afforded just a few targets. No moon out or major planets were visible. She was fascinated far more by the red dot finder than the targets visible. A few nights later, although, her parents took her out and showed her the moon. Now she can’t seem to get enough.
If I’ve any gripes at all, I would have liked to see eye pieces with a small a lot more relief as both the little girl and I wear glasses. Also a moon filter would have been a nice addition. All in all although, I was so impressed, I am going to have myself the 6″ model. I’m not into photography, just looking and this scope does a fine job.
If you’re the occasional stargazer on a budget, you couldn’t do much much better. And hopefully, I’ve sparked an interest in another that will afford her the same pleasure that astronomy has given me almost all my life.
As a teen, I had a tripod refractor scope that I went via the business of setting up, aiming, lining up, moving, aiming and so forth. Much to my surprise, this scope blew away those kinds of troubles I’d experienced years ago. Assembly was only the sight and also the eyepiece, everything else was already together.
Looking via the sight there’s a red dot that looks like it’s laser-sighted. After lining it up, I’d looked into the eyepiece to come across it was dead-on! Moon targeting took under three seconds.
Mars in about ten seconds. Swapping out eyepieces was a breeze and remained aligned. Swivel base was steady and simple to turn, all moving parts were smooth and intuitive. Portability was a selling point for me, no bulky tripod to pack up for a camping trip. It is a stunning desktop scope for any hobbist.
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 xፖ respectively. This significantly increased the overall cost but greatly added to the versatility.
I’ve had an Orion StarBlast for over a year now, and even even though I’ve larger, more sophisticated telescopes, it will be the one I use most. The setup is instantaneous although, like other reflectors, it takes some time to cool down on cold nights. It’s quickly portable, and works well being a grab `n go. The short focal length makes it exceptional for low power, wide field views of deep sky objects along with the moon. By way of 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 as well as the phases of Venus and Mercury. In the course of the last opposition, I could see Martian polar ice caps. In the course of 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 ideal of the three, but as with the others, the high power views are soft. That feature is not a difficulty 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 a lot more suited to these subjects.) Additionally, most globular clusters present as unresolved fuzzy balls, as they will in any instrument of this aperture.
For the price, although, you can’t actually beat the StarBlast. It works well as a family telescope, or as a casual scope for someone interested but not obsessed by astronomy. It can be little, inexpensive, and intuitive sufficient to be handled by kids. It also functions nicely for crusty old guys like me who have bigger hardware, but just don’t feel like moving it each and every night.
I’ve wanted a telescope since I was a kid and now that I’m all grown up and can afford one I did a lot of research and comparison of scopes in my price range and also the StarBlast often had the finest reviews. The reviews are right, the very first night I went out and looked at the moon, Venus, and a few other objects and they all exceeded my expectations for such a little scope. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can use it even more.
The equatorial mount is a bit complicated to use but I got used to it pretty quickly. I’d recommend the original Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro with the simpler dobsonian mount for younger kids or people who need a lot of portability.
I’ve never owned a telescope and got this for me and my 7 and 9 year old kids after doing some internet homework. It arrived packaged securely. was fairly effortless to set up and we were exploring the heavens in no time.
Showed my skeptic wife a planet, forget which one, she said “how do I know that’s not just a bright star?” so I zoomed in on Saturn and there was no room for doubt!
We live in a suburban neighborhood so the seeing problems are generally not extremely good but even in these disorders the rings of Saturn had been unmistakable.
Can’t wait to get out within the country to check it out under better problems but so far we love it and extremely recommend to others as a solid bang for the buck entry level scope.
The equatorial mount setup is really a quite lengthy process. It comes in numerous pieces so, if you are buying this get ready to spend most of the very first night putting them all together and figuring out how (the instructions manual just isn’t quite user friendly…you’ll find two primary pictures you might be supposed to use as guide but not too helpful).
The upside of this is that, once armed and leveled, it is pretty strong and firm so you do not have to be adjusting screws and notches all the time like with my previous telescope. This also helps to hold the target image nevertheless.
Packaging was AWFUL. My telescope arrived broken: the primary mirror had separated from the bottom on the tube and hit the secondary mirror numerous times (during transit most likely). The major reflector mirror ended up severely scratched plus the secondary mirror broken. I put it all back together as ideal I could, collimated (adjusted the mirrors angles and tilt) as described within the user’s guide and tested the telescope on Jupiter and its Galilean moons.
The effect in the broken/scratched mirrors is obvious along with the image just isn’t clear. You do not get to see Jupiter’s gas stripes as advertised. You are able to nevertheless get a very good look at the earth moon though. I’m nonetheless waiting on Saturn to become visible to evaluate. The item is reasonably large and a little heavy so don’t think you’ll be able to just drive it around easily, unless you’ve a big trunk.
For the price, it’s certainly worth it, assuming you get it delivered in far better conditions than I received mine. I’m not happy with it but its not like I’m extremely disappointed at it.
This telescope is made in China and it lives up to the poor reputation China has recently established for quite a few of their solutions. I’ve had 3 telescopes over the years, prior to purchasing this one particular (one particular reflector and two refractors).
All the previous ones were smaller and less high-priced, but provided significantly, a lot greater images. I’ve checked and rechecked the collimation and it’s dead-on. Saturn appears as an elongated blurr, better inside 20 mm eyepiece, but much worse than I’ve ever seen in my earlier telescopes. Mars shows up extremely fuzzy with no definition. The craters in the moon near the center in the field look reasonable, but the ones nearer the outer edge from the field of view are out of concentrate.
I tend to believe that this might include a inexpensive spherical mirror rather than the required parabolic one particular. The focusing isn’t fine sufficient and also the mount is quite unsteady when trying to concentrate. The finder scope is extremely cheaply built and requires realignment every time I attempt to use it. Additionally, according to my calculations, only the center portion (approximately three inches) on the five inch mirror is effectively used since the 1000 mm focal length is about 40% longer than the optical tube (a great deal from the light reflected from the primary mirror completely misses the diagonal mirror).
It looks like they had an after-thought about packaging the product and installed corrective optics inside the base on the focusing tube to be in a position to build a shorter telescope and package it in a shorter box. I’m quite sorry I bought this telescope and I’d be extremely ashamed to sell it to somebody else. I’ll be watching much more closely for where items are from, and will avoid chinese-made goods until they prove themselves to be able to provide reasonable top quality in what they make.
I received this telescope as a Christmas present, and have been mostly satisfied with it.
Within the plus side: the optics are great, it has a big aperture, a solid mount, and comes with one particular helpful eyepiece.
About the downside, the 4mm eyepiece is entirely useless. It yields blurry images and is so small it is nearly impossible to appear via. Likewise the 3x barlow lens is incredibly cheap and will only work with the 20mm eyepiece, and poorly at that.
One word of advice: you’ll require to put a piece of tape within the center from the primary mirror in the event you need to collimate it correctly, which is required for sharp images. Almost all reflecting telescopes come having a mark within the center of the mirror that’s employed for this purpose. You are able to simply locate instructions on how to do this on-line.
That being said I would still recommend this telescope since it truly is the most powerful a single you possibly can get in its price range. You will most likely would like to invest in one more high zoom (~10mm) eyepiece and barlow lens. When used using my Ccelestron Powerseeker 127 eq using a quality eyepiece, I have show my roommates views of excellent views of Saturn that “look fake”. Many hundred craters are very easily visible about the moon when conditions are favorable.
