Review on 🔭 Galileoscope Kit by Arbor Scientific: Model 299 by Jared Coleman

Galileoscope is easy to assemble without tools. I really liked the quality of design, workmanship and optics. With the included 20mm eyepiece the telescope gives a good 25x magnification of the moon and you can see the moons of Jupiter (it's not that hard - almost any binocular will show them) but also when conditions are dark and clear , a faint hint of streaks across the planet's disk. You can see Saturn's rings clearly, even though they are very small! If you have a Barlow lens, use it! The one that came with the telescope works better than nothing and goes well with the overall quality of the telescope. Focusing with a retractable tube suits me. You can pull or push for coarse focus and rotate for very fine focus. I don't find it much more difficult to focus than a regular rack and pinion focuser and I'm perfectly happy with it. . These work fine. I considered applying a few dots of glow-in-the-dark paint to help see the sights in the dark, but so far that hasn't been a problem. There always seems to be enough ambient light to get the job done and I appreciate the sheer simplicity of the design. The included tripod nut works great with my heavy-duty tripod; I added an additional quick release base to the telescope and now the telescope just sits on the top shelf on the small stand that came with it (two simple blocks with wide V-shaped cutouts at the top). When I want to use it, I just mount the telescope on a tripod and go outside! When I'm done, the scope returns to the shelf and the tripod folds up and stows back in the closet. Much less space than a fully equipped refractor with tripod on equatorial mount and all. Of course, the lack of an included tripod can also complicate the task. I've experimented with different ways to support the telescope, and part of the fun of the instrument is that it lends itself to such experiments. Galileo himself apparently hung his visor from a ribbon and hung it on a simple stand (see for yourself). I've tried this and it works fine at low magnification, but obviously it moves a lot when you touch the telescope. Galileo revolutionized astronomy with this setup - what do you mean it's not good enough for you ;-)? You can also make a work prop out of a cardboard box or craft something from the store if you have hands. I thought working with a telescope was fun and if you don't have a tripod available you can still observe with something like this, albeit less conveniently. I chose a heavy duty Manfrotto tripod which I already own and it works great on this one too and is much easier to assemble, use and store. I have some eyepieces from another telescope I own and I recommend you get some for this scope. The included 20mm eyepiece offers 25x magnification. I also used a 16mm eyepiece with about 32x magnification and a 9.8mm eyepiece with about 50x magnification. Just to see what the telescope is capable of, I put a 50x eyepiece into a 2.5x Barlow lens, which gave about 125x magnification, the theoretical maximum for the 50x mm lens of this telescope. I was very satisfied - I didn't see any color diffraction at all. However, at 125x the moon is moving very quickly, so you'll need a tripod that can keep up! But I think the best overall view is probably with a 16mm eyepiece at around 32x (Meade Series III Plossl). Significantly clearer than the included 25x eyepiece, it shows the rings of Saturn, the bands on Jupiter and impressive views of the moon. If you have purchased this telescope and decide to keep it for yourself, I highly recommend adding another good quality eyepiece or two. I also have a 28mm (18x) eyepiece to get a "wide field" - a good way to view the Orion Nebula, Prazepe, the Pleiades and similar large objects. At that scale, they look great. The scope comes with an 18x "Galileo" eyepiece, which I felt was useless as an eyepiece except to show how hard Galileo was seeing! I assume this is part of what makes it a "Galileoscope". However, the scope very cleverly comes with a small tube that allows you to convert this eyepiece into a 2x Barlow lens. This gives you a wider, albeit darker, view with the 20mm/25x eyepiece (included) or any other eyepiece. The biggest design issue is that there's no star diagonal, so you really have to tilt your head back to see things above your head. And you have to find a way to get under the tripod. If you're a yoga master you won't have a problem, but otherwise it's the same problem as binoculars. On the other hand, you can see a lot in the sky at any given time, so you don't always have to look straight up. The telescope is perfectly usable on its own. If you already have a star diagonal, you can use that if you are using a barlow at the same time. Either the Barlow Galileoscope that came with the scope or your own will do. Barlow is needed to set the telescope's focus range - there isn't enough "in focus" movement in its design to use the diagonal of the star; With Barlow I was able to get it working. Note that the Barlow Galileoscope's inner diameter was too narrow for standard 1.25" eyepieces, although it did fit in the included eyepiece. A few minutes of grinding increased the inside diameter enough to give a tight but acceptable fit. The main downside is the price, which is why I'm showing four stars instead of five, as for a few euros more you can buy a 60mm refractor that comes with a tripod, star diagonal and maybe a few more The Galileoscope has one There's a lot of "fun factor", and the experience of building a scope yourself is certainly educational, but it's hard to recommend a scope in this price range when compared to other good scopes that are only a few bucks more. If you only have a telescope and can afford a Galileoscope, you can afford a more complete system that is easier to use. At this price I think this is a niche product where the value comes from the "do it yourself" aspect rather than the quality of the scope (and that is good quality). It would be great for optics classes and as Introduction to the History and Science of Galileo Galilei As a standalone telescope, however, I find it overpriced. For 3/4 of its current price (I paid $50) it would be competitive as a good "just" scope. I'm happy with it because I already have another telescope and it's fun to play with and I really didn't want to keep another tripod and stuff like that but it's really hard to justify the higher price in the long run..price aside I prefer Kudos to the wonderful team of people who conceived, designed and built this telescope It's a great idea and I think it works exactly as intended I've enjoyed playing with it and observing it If you're the do-it -yourself factor appeals or if you are interested With the story I think you will enjoy this project which will result in a very functional and high quality telescope when finished. UPDATE April 29, 2013: A word of caution. Yesterday I used the Galileoscope to observe the Sun through ocular projection - you use a telescope to project an image of the Sun onto a piece of paper. This is how Galileo made his famous drawings of sunspots. I played around with the setup for at least half an hour and tried different things. At the end of the session I discovered that I had melted the locking ring in the 25mm eyepiece! The lenses seemed fine, but the inner edges of the ring had melted. So if you use it this way (and it's the only safe way to watch the sun other than buying an expensive sun filter), limit your sessions to a few minutes at a time!