Review on Discover The Wonders Of The Universe With Orion StarBlast 4.5 Telescope In Teal Color by Alan Estell

I am very impressed with this scope. I was looking for a low-cost entry-level scope to begin my experience with astronomy, and I started looking at the Celestron FirstScope and Orion Funscope. After reading that those units have spherical mirrors which cannot be adjusted (collimated), I decided to look at the next step of scopes.This scope came with 6mm and 17mm Kelner eyepieces. Supposedly these are not as good as Plossl, but I haven't had enough experience to tell the difference. I did buy a 2x and a 3x Barlow lens to increase the zoom of the default lenses. What was I able to see? On the first night I used the scope, I saw Jupiter with 3 of its moons and Saturn with its rings. Saturn was very clear and much better than I expected to ever see with an entry-level scope. Randomly scanning the sky resulted in all sorts of interesting star formations that I couldn't see with the naked eye. For reference, I am in a coastal city in Southern California with lots of light pollution.I noticed that the 17mm lens with either the 2x or 3x Barlow is perfectly clear as can be. The 6mm lens can be either clear or hazy depending on the weather. I suspect that the extreme zoom (75x by itself, 150x with 2x Barlow, 225x with 3x Barlow) pushes the limits of what can be seen through our atmosphere from a light-polluted city. In any case, I am hooked on astronomy so I'll get some Plossl lenses and see if it improves the view at higher zoom levels.From what I understand, this is a good reflector telescope for wide views - looking at constellations and deep sky objects. For viewing planets, you will probably want a refractor type telescope. That's my understanding, anyways. This unit comes with a table-top mount and red dot finder, which is super easy to use once calibrated. I find myself wanting a tripod type mount for better portability, but this is fine for using on a table in the backyard.