Orion 9024 AstroView 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope

This telescope is a great option for beginning astronomers. There are less expensive telescopes on the market, but the Orion is a better monetary investment because of both the features available right out of the box and the upgrade potential.The telescope itself is basic, but good quality for the price. The finder scope is magnified, and better than the red dot finders included with many other entry level purchases. The whole thing can also be put together very quickly. The included star diagonal and eyepieces are also basic, but the use of standard 1.25" connections means that you can easily upgrade them, and any pieces that you do upgrade will also be compatible with higher end telescopes that use a 1.25" connection.Really though, the reason to get this over another entry level purchase is the mount. Although an equatorial mount is less intuitive than an alt-azimuth mount, taking the time to learn how to use it is time well spent. Tracking objects during a night of stargazing is considerably simpler with a properly aligned EQ mount, and this is especially critical when viewing at high magnification or taking photographs. A good quality EQ mount like this one will result in less frustration when tracking and a more enjoyable experience. Orion also offers a motor upgrade for the included mount, something not available on other entry level mounts.If there is a downside to this telescope, it's the tripod legs. While still better than some comparable options, it does feel like this is where costs were cut. Making adjustments to their length isn't very precise, and even when locked down they still have a bit of wobble that can impact your viewing.As with most specialty equipment, determining if this is the right purchase for you comes down to what you are planning to use it for. This Orion scope might actually be a bit of overkill if you are planning to only use it a few times, and you could get by with a less expensive telescope or a good pair of binoculars. On the other hand, if you plan to go deeper into astronomy or astrophotography and want a good jumping off point, this is a fantastic purchase to get your feet wet and figure out if things will hold your interest without breaking the bank.

My scope was delivered on a Friday night, and like anyone with a new toy (hah) I wanted to immediately look through it. But of course, it had to be assembled. I was expecting it to be a much more involved and difficult task, but assembly turned out to be extremely straightforward and took less than an hour. The instructions were fairly clear overall, though there could have been more pictures.I then loaded it into my car, and took off to spend the weekend camping out and stargazing at a county park north of town. Once it got dark out, I set the scope up and got it aligned. Even though I had never used an equatorial mount before, the instructions were again fairly clear-- just point the scope at Polaris with Dec set at zero. It even included instructions for finding Polaris based on the big dipper. Even though I'm not really a beginner I thought it was a nice touch.Views are good. Very sharp. The optics are of excellent quality, yielding crisp images all the way out to near maximum magnification. The included eyepieces are from Orion's Sirius line of Plössls, very decent mid-range optics. I used a 2x barlow I had from my previous scope to stretch the scope out to the Dawes limit with the 10mm piece (1820mm effective tube focal length, giving me 182x), and was pleased that even under less-than-ideal seeing conditions (smoke from California wildfires, high humidity, upper-atmosphere turbulence) I was still able to see significant amounts of detail on Jupiter and Saturn, and even see Mars very well. There was practically no color fringing around planets at low to intermediate magnifications, and only minor fringing at high powers.The focuser is just a rack-and-pinion type, no slow-motion controls. It's what I'm used to on my old 60mm scope though, so I am quite satisfied. This is a great intermediate telescope, and I'm very happy with my purchase.

This telescope is a really good bargain. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and have had a few good nights to play with it. I already had an Orion dielectric diagonal so I used it in combination with the provided eyepieces along with some I already had. One night I got a clear look at Jupiter at 182x magnification with the 10mm eyepiece and a 2x barlow but most nights a 6mm expanse clone at around 150x was the most magnification I could get a good view with. On the Moon however I used a 2x barlow with a 9mm expanse clone for 202x with great results. I also used a #8 light yellow filter combined with a #82 light blue filter. This tamed the chromatic aberration somewhat. The CA is noticeable on the limb of the moon and Jupiter but not overwhelming.The equatorial mount is not hard to use and Orion provides at least two instructional videos on YouTube on how to assemble and use the mount. It does shake a bit at high magnification but it's adequate. I usually hang a ten pound weight on the tripod and this helps but doesn't eliminate vibration. The slow motion controls help a lot when viewing at high magnification.The finderscope is usable but I replaced it with an 8x50 right angle finder because I already had it and I like the image in the finder to be the same orientation as of the telescope.I like being able to quickly move this telescope out in the yard for a short look at the moon and planets in the evening and unlike so many other telescopes in this price range, it has good optics and Orion provides accessories you can actually use.