I have been shocked at how much brighter the image is than I remember. The results have been astounding! With the benefit of experience and a decent finder scope I have found every visible object in Turn left at Orion and a few more from my star atlases. I then had a fall and killed my Maksutov, leaving me with no way of peering at low objects as my main telescope is mounted to low to see them over my high fences.Ībout a week ago I decided to fit the 6x30 finder from the Mak to the Tasco and use my much more modern eyepieces to see if I could use this scope as a stopgap. This led to the unpacking and dusting off of the old scope. However I did start to think about using the mount for my PST and 90mm Maksutov. I said yes and promptly stuck in the loft. That friend recently moved away and didn’t want to take the scope with him and asked if I’d take it back. The Tasco went back in its box and was eventually given away to a friend who never used it. I decided that a larger telescope was what I needed and eventually got one. It was indeed the ringed planet and I was hooked! Later I did manage to find several deep sky objects including M57, M31 and some open clusters. Just about the time I was getting bored I saw a bright star over in the east and as I knew Saturn was around I had a look. Unfortunately, after many months the moon and some stars was all had seen! I tried and tried but could not find Andromeda and so on. The view through the two eyepieces was quite good and I got some good views of the moon. The barlow lens was also plastic and was awful. It could see the brightest stars and the moon and planets but that was all. Now the finder was plastic, with plastic lenses and was stopped down to less than 10mm. It was obvious to me (a total beginner) that the accessories accompanying the scope were poor. The tube as a whole seemed of good quality. There was a single vane secondary holder which held the secondary very well.
The tube was painted internally an effective matt black colour and the focuser was very sooth (although it was made of plastic). The telescope seemed to vibrate a lot when focussing but was not so bad when actually observing. There seemed to be a lot of knobs, which became quite confusing and fiddly for a beginner. Initially polar alignment of the mount was confusing and I am sure I was not aligning on Polaris for several months! The mount was solid and of reasonable quality. Now I shall briefly review the year or so in which I used this telescope. Assembly took about an hour but could have been less I just enjoyed the process greatly after all those years of waiting for a telescope!
The general build quality seemed reasonable for the most part (exceptions to follow) and it was accompanied by the best and most thorough set of instructions I have ever received with any telescope. It was larger than I expected and quite heavy. Upon taking the telescope home and unpacking it I was very impressed. I had no idea where else to look for a telescope and I didn’t want to wait indefinitely. However, I had enough money for this telescope and it was immediately available. I was also aware that Patrick Moore had many times repeated his view, that a six inch reflector was the minimum that should be considered. I was fully aware of the poor reputation of Tasco telescopes but at that time there were not so many telescope dealers (the internet existed but was at this time very low key and certainly there were no online retailers). At that time I had spent many years as an avid ‘armchair’ astronomer and had observed with a pair of cheap soviet 8x30 binoculars for about 16 years. This is a review of my first telescope it was purchased some years ago from a camera shop. The Tasco 114mm aperture 900mm focal length ‘Galaxsee’ Newtonian reflector
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