Telescopes

Can a home-made spotting scope work as well as one made in a factory? Can a home-made spotter equal the quality of one from the store? This reviewer attempts to answer the question when he pits two factory-made spotting scopes against three of his own creations.

Redefining the Standards of Optical Excellence

Have you ever received a new, prized telescope only to have cloudy skies for what seems to be weeks at a time? Here's a very useful way to occupy that time...

A middleweight scope with a heavy punch

In an hour or two an Aluminum bodied Celestron can become a Carbon Fiber beauty with all the benefits of CF (along with longer cool down).

Taking it to the next level

Looking for awesome views of the Moon and Planets with a quality 80mm scope at a great price, well read on...

The good, the bad and the good (again)

Just over a year ago, Mighty Meade made an announcement: they were preparing to release a new, low cost, triplet apochromat design. A number of questions were immediately raised in forums and blogs across the web: Would Meade’s entry into the low-cost APO field rout the established players in the field? Are three pieces of air spaced glass in a mass-produced objective better than two? While few details were forthcoming from Meade (they were apparently busy trying to get the telescopes out the door), with the initial Series 5000 triplets finally shipping in early 2007, we could finally see if the Empire’s apochromat has what it takes to crush the Rebellion.

How does Orion's new 150mm f/12 MCT measure up?

The ZS 110 triplet APO has been in WO’s program for a while and after reading some reviews we decided to examine the Black Lady ourselves. Unfortunately, the Dutch weather is nothing to be proud of. So we waited and waited, until one evening…

The Coronado PST provides access to the exciting world of h-alpha solar astronomy at a reasonable price.

Most of us consider the inside of an expensive telescope sacred ground with factory only admission. I’ve been a little scared of opening one up but the perfect opportunity came along recently.

After nearly 16 years of owning and using apochromatic refractor telescope from Astro-Physics (128 Starfire, 105 Traveller, 130EDFS, 155EDFS), TMB (80mm, 105mm) and Takahashi (FS60-C, TOA130, FSQ106), I thought it was time to give a newbie on the market of APO refractors a try.

A seemingly ill matched OTA/mount combination turns out to be an absolute winner on all counts.