Meade 20218 Ng-70sm 70mm Altazimuth Refractor Telescope 4.4 5 10 15
Great 'Beginner', Manual, Refractor Telescope! Well, right now, there's a Wal-Mart Roll Back on the Celestron Powerseeker 70AZ refractor telescope ($59.00) which makes it a better value, but, this is a very solid performer for many, many reasons:1) Excellent optics: Objective lens, diagonal & eyeieces are of better quality than price suggests. Image clarity & views are limited to light gathering (70mm aperature) and 'seeing' conditions only.2) Overall balance of quality pieces. Yes, there are plastic pieces on this telescope, however, the Optical Tube Assembly, focuser, tripod, etc. are all metal. This is strong, sturdy telescope that can take young children's unintentional roughness & still work like a charm.3) If this is a first 'scope, it will end up as a favorite, regardless of how far you go in astronomy. Small enough to be carried with 1 hand (mount as a 'handle') and good enough to 'check' seeing conditions with! I've seen the rings of Jupiter, Saturn (bad 'seeing' conditions though) and have been 'wowed' by the detail on the moon for countless hours-just ask my wife! My four (4) children are willing to stand in the cold for hours to 'see' with it-she gets a break with our usage. Many planets will not be visible through this small (70mm) telescope but, some nebula can be seen through it too!Bummers about his telescope:1) There is no real way to balance the Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) on the mount. Although the mount itself is well designed, the OTA is easily unbalanced by adding a 2x or 3x Barlow, a 32mm or 40mm eyepiece (EP) and heaven forbid you try to use a zoom lens (8mm to 24mm) from anyone! The weight will prevent appropriate balance and one runs the risk of the OTA 'falling off' the mount. (Don't ask me how I'm so sure about it either!)2) The telescope should include, or have available for a moderate price the following items, as they are really very useful and the absence of them will be noticed almost immediately (even for the very newest beginner!)a) A 2x or 3x Barlow-doubles the number of available magnifications from existing EP's!b) An Image Erecting Prism. Great for daytime/terrestrial viewing & moon observation.If you are serious about 'buying' a beginner telescope soon, please consider the Celestron version of this 'scope @ $59.00 from Wal-Mart. It includes excellent optics too, and has the above mentioned items and an additional EP for a wider range of viewing options! Both 'scopes are outstanding values, make excellent gifts, hold just under 50% of initial value in case the recipient has no interest and are quality optical instruments.I use my NG70-SM all the time and love it. However, it's time to get a larger aperature 'scope and www.walmart.com/ has a great value in the Meade 90AZ-ADR at just under $150.00, that has a better OTA balancing solution, better included EP's and more reachable Alt/Az slow motion adjusters to boot! Caution: it's more than double the price of either 70mm scope mentioned in this review!In closing, regardless of which telescope you buy, please note that the pictures on the box are usually from the Hubble telescope, professional astrophotographers, NASA, or other space based telescopes. DO NOT BUY or expect a beginner telescope to acheive these types of views, as it's unreasonable and won't happen.Good luck & clear skies!Dave 05/29/2011
A great beginners telescope I bought this for my 9 yr. old grandson for Christmas. He loves it and is always lookingfor stars and such. He can't wait for the first fullmoon to really see it. 12/30/2010
No better scope for current price of $66 ! I am very surprised at the quality of the lens, focuser, and slow motion controls. After assembly, it was out in the back yard, and my first target was Saturn, which clearly showed its main rings, even in front of the planet. I also looked at the blue and yellow double-star Albireo, and the planetary nebula M27. The Milky Way is beautiful in this scope at low powers (I used my 40mm Plossl for this), and the brighter Globular clusters start to look interesting. Later on in the night, Jupiter showed its major cloud belts and the Galilean moons as tiny pinpoints, and even a few of the brighter galaxies can be found under dark skies.I would recommend a better diagonal and eyepieces, though, than those included. The diagonal actually is good quality but gives dimmer images than it should because the mirror is too small. My Plossl eyepieces give a distinct improvement in performance over the ones included, but they cost almost $45 apiece.Still - not bad for a complete telescope at only $66 !This is a great grab-and-go scope, a great inexpensive telescope to start out with, or a child's first scope. I highly recommend this 70mm Meade. It has great optics, a simple to aim mount, and a steady tripod. If only most other inexpensive scopes were this good.PROS - Surprisingly good quality 70mm f/10 lens. Hardly any false color. Sturdy lightweight steel tripod and mount with gear-driven slow motion controls for easy fine adjustments in aiming. Decent quality diagonal mirror and eyepieces that don't give stupid-high magnifications.CONS - Had difficulty at first attaching tube to mount and balancing it properly. Tube should NOT be too tightly attached to mount. But once adjusted, works just fine. Red dot finder hard to aim - the two adjustments are very hard to turn and use. Once adjusted though, it stays put. But the red dot itself is way too bright, even at the lowest setting.Would I buy it again? YES. 07/01/2011
Great view Very accurate for a beginners telescope. I only got to see the moon one clear night and it looked like the pictures you see in books. I could see the craters good enough. Wish I could have taken a picture of it. 05/13/2011
