Telescope Reviews: My scope is "running" away! Help!!!

Also, if not mentioned before, get a few decent eyepieces and DO NOT be lured in by the "more power = good!" silliness that crops up from dishonest telescope dealers. Most of your observing will be done at lower powers, and rarely does atmospheric conditions let you get much above 200x.

Your current eyepieces are, to be honest, junk, but that can be easily fixed. Good Plossls will produce a significant improvement in your viewing pleasure. They have better optics, wider fields of view, and so on. And they aren't that costly - check out Orion Telescope's Sirius line of Plossls, as one example.

To get the magnification provided by an eyepiece, divide the focal length of the telescope (in mm) by the focal length of the eyepiece (in mm). That will give you the magnification provided by that eyepiece.

Now, I am going to ASSUME that this scope has the same optical path as an Orion Short Tube reflector, but you must check the focal length of the scope yourself, just to be sure.

Focal Length of (similar?) Orion Short Tube = 1000mm

Now, you can get a nice mix of eyepieces from the Sirius line (or similar, but I am just suggesting them for now), such as a 32mm for low-power viewing to find objects and look at large objects, a 17mm for medium to low-power viewing, and a 10mm to get 100x for mid power viewing.

That's just one example, but it gets the point across that you'll need about 3 or 4 eyepieces - one nice, big, low power eyepiece to use to find objects and enjoy wider fields of view, a higher power eyepiece (but not over 200x) for high power views of planets, double stars, and globular clusters, and about 2 eyepieces between the two extremes.

I think that Orion offers sets of Sirius and Highlight Plossls (the Highlights have slightly better coatings are slightly more costly) that could help you. There is a Starter set, which includes a 26mm, a 17mm, and a 10mm - this would probably be the best place to begin, and an Expansion set, which has a 20mm, a 12.5mm, and a 7.5mm. Those are higher power eyepieces, which makes them more suited for planets and such.

Anyway, hope we've been of help to you!

While I cannot speak for the optical quality of your particular scope, I started in astronomy about 16 years ago with a $300 equivalent of your current scope. A Tasco 11TR 4.5 F7.9 Reflector on an equatorial mount almost identical to yours (the legs back then were wood, which was nicer). It, too, came with CRUD eyepieces - Ramsdens, Hyugens, and other junk that were actually PLASTIC - but I quickly replaced them with what I could find, which wasn't much since it could only take 0.965" diameter eyepieces. Back then, Orion sold Orthoscopics in that size, and thus I became a loyal customer of them and enjoyed much better views with my little telescope. I had it for over 5 years, enjoying it all the while, before I upgraded.

Point being: while your current scope may not be incredible, you can still do a lot with it, and since you can use the standard 1.25" diameter eyepieces, you're better off than I was.

Good luck, welcome to the hobby, and have fun!

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Matthew
IDA member
XT8i, 10x50 binoculars, lots of eyepieces