Orion 10012 SkyScanner 100mm TableTop Reflector Telescope (Burgundy)

Product Information

Despite its compact size, the SkyScanner 100mm TableTop Reflector boasts a 100mm (3.9″) aperture parabolic glass primary mirror that captures ample faint light, enabling you to view the Moon’s cratered surface, bright planets, and even distant deep-space nebulas in sharp detail. Short focal length

Beginner Level - Suited for a wide range of uses, these products are simple to operate and set up. Some initial assembly may be required depending on the type of product. Optical instruments with this rating will have very good optical and mechanical quality. Great for families, young people, and folks who don't want to mess with equipment and complexity. Beginning level telescopes will show you countless lunar craters, Saturn's rings and a myriad of star clusters and nebulae! Referring to the manual is recommended.This configuration can lead to inconvenient viewing angles, requiring users to either stand and bend over the telescope when pointed near the horizon or sit down and look forward when pointed toward the zenith. Features of the Orion SkyScanner 100mm Designed with a convenient tabletop Dobsonian style mount and intuitive swivel base, it provides hassle-free operation and a wide field of view.

The Orion SkyScanner comes with two 4-element eyepieces of 20mm and 10mm. The 20mm eyepiece provides a magnification of 20x, perfect for wide field views that showcase extended objects like nebulae and larger star clusters. The Kellner eyepieces are much better than the trash supplied with most cheap beginner telescopes. They generally show very clear, sharp views, and have acceptable eye relief and field of view. They’re not spectacular, but they’re all you need to get started. If you started your journey into astronomy using binoculars and this would be your first telescope, you will enjoy having this wide field of view capability. If you were to add a 25 mm Plossl eyepiece to your eyepiece set, you would get a view as wide as 3 degrees, which is wide enough to take in almost all of the Andromeda Galaxy. Most telescopes cannot do this.If you’re considering taking the first step into your stargazing journey or if you’re a seasoned amateur astronomer looking for a portable secondary telescope, the Orion SkyScanner 100mm offers a blend of convenience, functionality, and affordability.

One of my favorite objects is the Coat Hanger cluster, but it’s usually a binocular object. The SkyScanner’s fast focal ratio shows plenty of smaller stars in the region and shows the Coat Hanger in splendid, bright detail. The accessories provided in the box include 2 1.25″ kellner eyepieces at 20mm and 10mm focal length, a AltAz Dobsonian mount, a EZ Finder II reflex sight and a bunch of other miscellaneous documents. As for the mount, it’s a very solid one that that comes with a Tabletop variant right out of the box so, if you have a sturdy enough surface to place it on, the viewing experience should be fairly smooth considering the smooth turning motion left to right. The tension for the movement can also be adjusted by using the adjustment dial on the side.The Orion SkyScanner has reflector optics inside, which according to its specifications is the Newtonian reflector variation. What this means in that the primary mirror inside the tube will be designed to be parabolic which will allow users to view a more focused image through the eyepiece. However, you can enhance your viewing experience with some additional accessories, such as a Barlow lens for increased magnification, additional filters for different viewing conditions, or a sturdy field tripod if you want to use the telescope away from a tabletop. It boasts an ample primary mirror and a fast focal ratio, offering sharp views of lunar craters, bright planets, and even some distant galaxies. When the telescope tube is mounted directly to a photo tripod, the eyepiece is at the side in all orientations, which is better, but the tripod should be raised to the eye level of the observer, meaning sharing the telescope between people of very different heights (i.e., a parent showing their child) is uncomfortable. The maximum possible magnification with this telescope is 200x, but in practice, you’ll want to stay around 150x or lower. In both cases, you’ll need to combine high power eyepieces with a quality barlow lens.