Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescopes for Adults Astronomy, 70mm Aperture Catadioptric Compound Telescope, Compact Portable Travel Telescope, w. Pro Tripod & Phone Adapter

I have had larger telescope before but moved into a smaller house with no room for big scopes. I have a small Meade 90mm tabletop reflector a 7Omm Celestron backpack refractor. I wanted this scope because I had a large Cassegrain scope and they are great. Likes: The tripod is sturdy and of excellent quality (I don't know why some reviews said it was not). It also includes a bubble level. The tripod has a screw that attaches to the mount. Simple to install. Scope tube has a wedge, so it can be used with other telescope tripods and mounts. Good quality lenses, good optics. Dislikes: The way the finder scope is mounted it can only be used with this scope. Manual is self explanatory but does not mention the focus slider on the side. Support gave a confusing answer to question about slider and did not respond afterwards. Tips: it doesn't really matter where the slider is but it is for close range focus or distance. Slide forward for space and back for closer items. You can Google this for more information. To get the vertical axis knob to work properly you need the back of the wedge flush with its mount. This puts more weight to the front. Be careful to tighten the tube's wedge into the slide mount. Make sure it is tight but not overly tight.

I bought this to replace a budget Celestron PowerSeeker 60 that I had for 7 years, so that I can do some lightweight viewing of the moon and some planets. This works very well and compared to the celestron it is an upgrade. At this price the tripod is not the best; it has some wobbling; but once you get accustomed to it you can work around it. The telescope itself does not move around but the bottom part of the tripod is what presents the wobble. Don't use the last leg to maintain better stability and use with a lot of space around so as to be able to avoid touching the telescope too much. Observing the moon was quick and easy. The included pieces were a little cheaply built but provided good viewing. I used other eye pieces I had from Svbony and they worked well. The phone adaptor worked well enough. It caused some wobble but with patience it allowed some good pictures. Better than other adaptors I tried with other telescopes. Planets also showed well. However I found the finder's scope to be very difficult to use and calibrate. While trying to calibrate/align the finder's scope it was hard to maintain the angle and stability of the telescope on the tripod. This made the planet viewing experience cumbersome. I will try to re align the scope when i get some time but for now i enjoy the lunar views. This makes for a great first scope. Except for the finders scope it is easy to use and focus and see the moon and planets quickly and reasonably. The tripod is not the most stable but at this price point it is expected and with some workarounds and ways to keep it otherwise stable it can work out.

I got a Decouvir brand which looks exactly the same but I like it very much. I have 4 telescopes and 2 are celestrons. This Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope is the best one I have owned. The ease of use and portability is amazing. Thank you.

Much smaller than expected.

Shakes way too much even with all legs stabilized just can't get a clear image without the legs trembling so much, even with light wind. Maybe I got a defected one but that was my experience. When I did get a stable image the lens was very clear and easy to adjust. Kids loved it when it wasn't shaking.

While the telescope itself looks good, the mount and tripod don't attach to it in a meaningful way. The telescope is useless without proper coupling to the mount/tripod. No assembly instructions were included.

Mount is cheap scope is ok my finder came broken still trying to communicate with seller Honest review you get what you pay for

Great grab and go scope. The scope itself is really very good. supplied eyepieces work ok but scope can take better standard eyepieces. the 70mm Horox (Decouvir) scope is really powerful and light weight. I would recommend this for beginners or those that want to use this as a travel scope.