Orion AstroView 90mm

4.0 AstroView 90 EQ Great beginners scope!

Nice optics and coatings, Price, Great beginners scope!

Obvious chromatic aberration on any bright object

As a beginner scope this is not too bad of a deal- the optics are pretty decent, the mount, tripod and finder scope are acceptable and the eyepeices are decent and well matched with the capabilities of the telescope. The optics display obvious chromatic aberration on any object bright object such as Jupiter and the Moon. The scope can reliably split double stars as close as 2 arc seconds apart even on nights of poor seeing. The optics cool down reasonably quickly due to the size of the scope and will probably never need collimation if handled normally. The mount and tripod are steady enough only for visual observing, though its a little shaky for high power observing. The scope comes with a 25mm Sirius Plossl eyepiece (1.25"), a 10mm Sirius Plossl eyepiece (1.25") and a standard 90-deg mirror star diagonal which all seem to work well with this telescope. The mount's setting circles work to some degree and will reliably get you within about 3 deg. from your target when you get the hang of them. The finder scope is of good quality but a Telrad works much better. This scope serves pretty well for planetary observing and splitting double stars. It also does well with some of the brighter deep sky objects such as M13 and the Orion Nebula. Like I said before, it is a good beginner scope and will give many years of good service!