Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro Reflector Telescope MAX Kit for Beginner and Intermediate Astronomy - Includes Eyepieces, Barlow Lens & Accessories

I bought 2 of these telescopes. One for each of my sons (one in CA and one in OH). This is a very good beginner / intermediate telescope. Powerful enough to see the rings on Saturn and see great detail on the moon. Both of my boys love this telescope and are often outside at night looking at planets and stars. It's portable enough you can put it in the car and take it camping with you. The kit comes with enough to really enjoy looking at the cosmos and was easy to set up. I would recommend buying the laser alignment tool as it makes set up much faster and more accurate.

I got this as a gift for my husband who loves astronomy and he couldn’t be happier. We had the privilege of witnessing Saturn and Jupiter closer than ever before and the magnification was able to see Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons. It was amazing! I am so happy with all of it and so is my husband! 10/10 would recommend for anyone!

Got this for my 10 year old niece. Know from experience that regular telescopes are IMPOSSIBLE to figure out and use. So I researched for weeks to find a good one that’s user friendly. It’s shiny and a little sparkly and pretty. I put it together in a few minutes. (It’s mostly together on arrival!) I love all the extras I was going to buy anyway, that came with it. Definitely worth the extra $50. At first Orion was backed up until after Christmas but somehow...they got it here maybe a week before!! VERY awesome suprise for that, thank you! It’s easy to figure out. I tried it once so far without using the book, just on general logic. It’s been too cold to get into using it so far but I’m hoping to see Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s stripes with this in a few months. Did see the moon a little bit in the freezing cold so that was cool. I’ll rate it more this spring when we try it out officially.

Once we finally figured out how to use the “easy view finder “ ... on our own ... the directions and online you tube videos were not very clear as we’re neophytes - this seems to be an excellent telescope to get us started -

I purchased this for my husband's Christmas gift. He has always wanted a telescope and this was his first. I was initially worried that it would be hard to use, but as the reviews said, it was almost too easy. So far we have used it on several occasions to look at the moon and were able to check out some other stellar events. The kids love it too. It's portability is great! Looking forward to camping trips when the weather warms up.

This one is hard to explain. The pictures in the add make it look like you will be able to get really close views of the moon, but with the provided lens package, that won't happen. Also, the portability of it is awesome except that when on a solid surface, it does swivel, but doesn't lock when you are trying to view an object so if someone even touches it slightly when they go to look through the eyepiece, just that slight touch moves the object out of view and it has to be readjusted. While it is a beginners telescope, I'm not sure I would buy it for a beginner as you have to be very patient with the adjustment as its just too loose and doesn't appear to be any way to fix that.

Amazing! Had it for a week and have seen Venus and Saturn already. Set-up instructions are easy, and there’s a lot of available guidance online. This is my first telescope and every penny worth it. Can’t wait to see the moon!

Really fun telescope

I really like the ease of use of this scope...i am a beginner but i also want to see the best views i can of planets, the moon and other deep space objects. It is great for basic views of planets..very clear but small images. luckily the scope came with a barlow, which is actually quite good. The two eye pieces are adequate but kelner eye pieces are fairly low on the scale of quality..For my first eyepiece upgrade i purchased a set of 9.5mm and 26mm svbony plossls which are affordable and a serious upgrade to what is provided, i would even say buy them before or at the same time you buy this scope. I have also tried a few barlows on this unit, a meade 3x which provided little compared to the 2x, might have something to do with the short focal length and narrow aperture...not sure..and i also used an svbony 2x thinking it would be an upgrade to the orion 2x shorty...it was not...of the 3, the shorty still looked much better.The finder scope, when properly aligned works well, the one drawback is that i forget that its on and killed the battery...buy a pack of those...also the finderscope is fairly cheap feeling..the focuser feels fairly fluid, however is all gummed up with grease and has gotten all over the adjustment knob..i will be degreasing these and replacing the grease with silicon lubricant as i have heard it makes the gears turn more fluidly..Overall i have enjoyed looking at planets, however i want to see them closer up and in more detail, you will not get this from this scope, and if you are like me and living in a light polluted area you will have no chance of seeing any deep sky objects at all, now, i haven't looked for a lot of them but i can tell you it will be difficult to see anything in the city...on a positive note, this unit is very light and portable and can be taken camping or to other less light polluted areas. When i get a chance to get out there i will update this review