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| |  | Electronics | Home » » Bushnell Northstar 300 x 90mm Motorized Telescope w/ Real Voice Output | | | | | | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 1.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 1.0 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 10.0 pounds | | Package Length:
| 43.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 18.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 10.5 inches | | Package Weight:
| 27.4 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 3 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Better than department store qualityJul 20, 2009
This is a decent telescope for the money and is a great instrument for a beginner or an amateur who needs a light weight portable scope that can perform reasonably well. Its a cut above those department store, Tasco specials. The 25 mm eyepiece that comes with scope is nice but the 4 mm is a joke because with the focal length of this telescope, it would magnify at 300x, which is way beyond its capabilities. I suspect they included that so they could advertise 300x for the uninformed. The 1.25 inch eyepiece adapter means you can upgrade to better eyepieces, if you so desire. I use a 12 mm eyepiece which I bought from Orion that gives me 100x and can really do the job on the moon, planets and the brighter Messier objects.
The red dot finder needs to be aligned at first, of course, and works well on brighter objects up to magnitude 2. Its a bit tricky on fainter objects since they cannot be seen through the plastic lens of the finder. You need to align to an area rather than the object and use your 25 mm lens to scan.
The biggest beef I have is with the GoTo unit. It often is inaccurate and takes you to an area close to the target and you end up scanning anyway. The worst thing is the red backlit LCD display with black letters. The red is so dark you can't see the letters in the dark so you end up using a white flashlight to read it which defeats the purpose. The voice narration is also annoying, after a while. The GoTo, is however, good for tracking objects as the drift across the sky.
 Save up for a much better telescopeDec 30, 2007
This had the potential to be a nice way for my daughter and I to explore the night sky. But I cannot recommend this scope for several reasons. First, it is almost impossible to align the tracking scope with a centered object in the main scope making the next steps impossible. Second, the backlight LED display for the handheld computer is a very dark red and impossible to see - even in my very dark backyard. I fail to understand Bushnell's point in using a display you cannot see.
Save your pennies and purchase a wider aperature telescope if you really want to see celestial bodies.
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Satisfactory optics...completely lacking documentation...Mar 21, 2007
All in all a great backyard scope for those getting interested in Astronomy. The optics are good for planet viewing and star gazing. Deep sky objects will be faint so don't expect Hubble clarity. Moon gazing is unbeatable and Saturn is quite clear even without any filters. A good filter/lens kit really makes this scope go a long way. Once set up the "Go To" software works pretty good. Sometimes it says we are there and it requires a little hunting and pecking to find as it is just out of the field of view. For the money (Sam's club had these for as little as $200 on sale) this scope is a great starter. The cons are the complete lack of documentation included for set up and alignment procedures as well as total lack of any kind of support on Bushnell's web site. Even the astronomy links on the site are bad (as in do not work). Shame on you Bushnell for not properly supporting what is an otherwise very good product for the money. Value 10/10 Construction 10/10 Ease of use 7/10
Portability 10/10 Optics 9/10 Included accessories 6/10 Documentation 2/10
Website 0/10. Hope this helps. I really like it and would recommend it for the 200 - 300 price range but no more.
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