Orion SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian Telescope for Adults - High Powered Beginner Astronomy Telescope for Moon, Planets & Deep-sky Objects

The Orion XT8 Classic is a great telescope at a wonderful price for new telescope users or those upgrading from a small, very inexpensive telescope to something more capable. Setup: The XT8 sets up easily and the instructions provided by Orion are not difficult to follow. Basically, you are assembling the Dobsonian base, which isn't hard to do. If you can bake a cake using a recipe from a book, this won't be hard. :-) The tools provided are all that are necessary to do so, but a power drill with a screwdriver and hex bit make quicker work of the assembly. Collimating: You most likely will need to collimate your scope, since the primary and secondary mirrors were likely pushed out of alignment during shipping. The instructions provided are all you need to do this along with the collimation cap. A laser collimator (optional equipment) is even better, but not needed for most folks. Take your time collimating by moving one screw on the primary or secondary mirror at a time and observing the results and you shouldn't have any problems. Moving more than one screw at a time can make your work harder, as it can become difficult to isolate which screw and mirror you need to adjust. Again, if you can follow written directions well, this shouldn't be hard. :-) Finding Things to See: If you have a decent knowledge of the sky, a no-frills reflector Dobsonian (like the XT8) is great for you. If you need a bit of help finding things to see, consider getting an electronic aid to find the objects you want to see. A lot of great applications for smart phones or tablet PCs allow you to do this by simply holding your phone/tablet to the sky and revealing the names of stars, objects, and constellations. I use Star Walk (among others) on my iPhone and iPad for this with great ease. If you want to find things very, very easily, then consider upgrading to an intelliscope or go-to scope, which does the work for you for a bit more money. The Dobsonian base can be a little tricky to maneuver to find what you want to see at first, but with a little practice you'll get the hang of it. Eyepieces: The XT8 comes with a 25 mm Plössl lens, which is a decent lens that gives you 48-power magnification with this scope. This okay, but you'll definitely want other eyepieces since there are better ones out there. Strongly consider getting 2-3 eyepieces (in the 10-32 mm range) and a 2-3 power Barlow lens, which would give you a set of power options for viewing. I'm using Tele Vue eyepieces and Barlows, which are a little higher quality than most of Orion's offerings, but if you're new to the hobby you'll likely have fun and not notice much difference with sub-$100 eyepieces and Barlows from most companies. :-) Overall: This is a great buy from Orion, giving you a scope that pulls down a lot of light at a modest price. I would definitely recommend this to those interested in getting into the hobby. :-)

Ok this telescope has a lot of bang for a little buck. First night out I saw Saturn with four moons highly visible. The second night ( tonight ) I found the Boges Galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy, Venus, Pinwheel Galaxy, and Whirlpool Galaxy. All of which were awesome. The 25mm eyepiece that comes with the telescope is great but I highly suggest buying more. I bought a Astro-Tech 1.25" Accessory kit which comes with 5 eyepieces, a 2x barlow lens, and 5 filters including a moon filter. I got all this for 119.95 from astronomics(dot)com. They really brought out some great views with this scope. I would love too look through this thing with some nice nagler lenses but maybe on down the road seeming this was a spur of the moment thing and I spent 550$ but I'm very glad I did. I found my new favorite hobby. And believe me, I did a lot of research on scopes before I bought this I swear I probably researched scopes for 2 weeks straight and found this one to have the best size, brand, reviews, and tech specs for the money. I am very glad I decided with this one. I highly suggest not buying this scope for anyone under at least 13 years old because it is big it's 45" tall just the tube not including the base. It ways around 45 pounds base/tube together. I highly suggest carrying them seperatly when setting up. So unless an adult will be around to lug this thing around for anyone under 13 I would buy them something smaller. But all in all I LOVE THIS TELESCOPE thats all I can say.. If you are looking into getting a scope of this size BUY THIS ONE YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. Also, I highly suggest anyone just starting out in stargazing not buying a go to scope buy a manual scope so you get to learn how to find stuff on your own that is half the fun in stargazing learning where everything is. Also, another reason a beginner should start on a manual scope is Ok think of this scenario.... You buy a go to scope and have never had to manually find anything. You decide to go to a dark sky sight a good drive from your house lets say 45 minutes to an hour drive. Ok you get there get set up and then realize your batteries are dead and you forgot to bring more so do you want to waste all the precious liquid gold gas and precious time just to turn around and go home or would you rather know how to find your way around the heavens and get to enjoy your planned evening out. Personally, I would love to enjoy my evening. Just saying people think about it????? Any comments you wanna leave go ahead I'll try to respond. Thank you I hope this review is helpful.

Ordered this, a 13% moon filter, and 3x barlow. Took longer to unpack and take inventory of the parts than it did to put it together. Easy instructions and certainly well protected for shipping. Mount is easy to swing but not easy enough to get free wheeling. Main mirror needed slight adjustment which took about 2 minutes to fix. Alignment with spotting scope was equally as easy. Overall, did not have any problems or any issues that weren't easily addressed by the instructions. Did my first test tonight. I live a few miles east of Philadelphia and within a 1/4 mile of a ridiculously lit up Super Walmart. And the only place I could do a test was in my drive way between houses on a busy suburb street. We got 10 inches of snow last night and this was the only place that was solid. Given my crappy location full of light pollution, my only real expectation tonight was to verify that the spotting scope and the main scope were in alignment. So I pointed at Orion's Nebula (M43) with my spotting scope and then took a look through the factory supplied 25mm eye piece with no barlow. WOW!!! Even with my crappy location, M43 was amazing!!! I could easily see the nebula and make out the hues and colors. Equally amazing, my spotting scope and main scope were dead on!! I then wheeled the scope towards Saturn which was only a few degrees over my neighbor's roof, a real no-no when it comes to stargazing. Well, if this was crappy conditions, all I can say is WOW!!! It was just as amazing. Even though the rings are tough to make out since the rings are right on in terms of their plane, it was still easy to see as well as plenty of moons circling. WOW!!! Then tried the 13% moon filter on the crescent moon. WOW!!! Wish I could describe it better, but the first peek at this stuff is just amazing!! I cannot wait to get out this weekend to rural area and look at this stuff. I'm giving it 5 stars now simply because the product's quality right of the box was top shelf and what you can view out of it is simply amazing even with my awful light polluted location. And even though I was only out testing for a few minutes, my neighbors wondered what I was doing and when I gave them a peek at Saturn, the ooooohs and aaaahs were priceless!!! If this thing somehow broke by tommorrow, I feel like I already got my money's worth.

I have played the research game for months before finally deciding on this as my first scope. I started with a planisphere and my own two eyes, learning constellations. My next step was to use binoculars to start getting a better glimpse of the sky. I was hooked and knew that I was ready to spend money on a scope that I would use over and over again. That's important, make sure you are really hooked in this pastime before spending money on a large item like this! Pros: Most cost effective way to get a lot of aperture. Orion is a good company with good quality control. This scope is well designed and built. Simple to use for beginners. Cons: Awkward to carry in one piece. It's a large item that needs to be stored somewhere safe when not in use. Only comes with one eye piece, which isn't going to satisfy you for very long. Overall, I do not feel the cons listed above have any real impact on the total value of this scope. I thought long and hard about spending three to five times this much on different scopes with more advanced features. In the end, I decided that I would save my money and pick this scope as the next logical step in my hobby. Don't fool around with anything cheaper or smaller, this is THE best beginner scope you can find.

Just bought this as a gift for my high-school sophomore daughter. I spent a lot of time comparison shopping on-line. Ordered it via Amazon, and it arrived in just a few days. Two boxes. Took me a bit longer to set it up than others who have posted here, but screwing together the base pieces was fairly easy, and then mounting the tube to the base was a snap. I like the handle, as it makes it more portable, although it is still bulky and I am still working on the best method for carrying it outdoors each night for our family sky-watching. Anyway, I REALLY like it so far. We bought the 3x Barlow lens too. We started using it during the new moon phase, and Saturn was out. Very cool to see Saturn's rings so clearly. Then last night we used it to look at the half-moon, and all I can say is...WOW! I felt like I was orbiting the moon and looking down from 60 miles. You can see shadows of individual craters, and the clarity is amazing. Very crisp image. The 3x Barlow really enhances the view, and really magnifies well. I also like the way you can rotate and pitch the tube. I didn't want to buy a 'scope with a tri-pod because of the extra weight and I didn't want to pay for the tri-pod. The base that comes with the xt8 is basic, but very functional. I think it works well, and I think it will be easy to carry it in our minivan out to the high country where the light pollution is reduced. So far we are very happy with this purchase.

This is my very first telescope. It's been alright and everything, I don't have any complain with the quality of the product per se. Only thing is, I haven't "fallen in love" with it or the hobby. This might just be my unrealistic expectations or still lack of skills/experience on it though. But for such a big ass, and already not that cheap telescope, I was hopping for better views. I've tried with the included 25mm eyepiece, as well with a 9mm one, both from my backyard as well ass far away from the city lights. On the bright side, it is very easy to mount, transport, and operate, so there is not too big of a learning curve, so I would say it is a good option if you are a beginner just like me. Just manage your expectations. It's also right on the limit of a big aperture, while still being able to carry it around on a sedan car. I think a 10in one would be already too big to fit it on most such cars. Clear skys!

I wanted to get a good "bang for my buck" starter scope, and I kept seeing the XT8 and I've read the reviews of it and was impressed so I bought it. The Telescope Arrived around a week later and I carried it inside, I noticed there was a big hole in the box, that's not good so I snapped some pictures of the box and took the telescope out, there was a giant dent in it, oh boy I thought. I snapped some pictures of the dent as well and figured I might as well try it before I contact customer support so after around an hour I finished assembling it, then waited for a non-cloudy day and Wow! This scope is amazing, the dent didn't affect it's performance. I wish I could recreate the moment where I first took it out and took off the cap and pointed it at a random pitch black part of the sky and saw dozens of stars in crisp clarity. I've seen Jupiter and the 4 moons, the Moon is astonishing, I warn you that with out a filter it hurts your eyes but its so amazing you wont be able to look away, I haven't been able to see any other planets due to where I live and the season, but I have seen some deep space objects as well. The first few nights of viewing had some light clouds and humidity and such preventing me from finding Andromeda but on a cold clear night I managed to find it and it's quite amazing, a very defined yellow blob, with 2 other blobs in the vicinity, I was also able to observe the Ring Nebula and I could see it's structure clearly. Now onto the customer service, I emailed and received a reply quite quickly, it didn't sound like Orion wanted to replace my damaged telescope tube until I sent them the high quality pictures I snapped of the packaging and the dent, after that I received a reply stating that my new and undamaged tube is already on the way (I've received it by now and it's great). Overall a great experience here and I recommend this telescope to anyone wanting a really good beginner or even pro telescope.

A great beginner-intermediate level scope that should last for years. What I like the most: Great optics that are clear and bright. Appropriate for viewing the moon, planets, and an assortment of nebulae and messier objects. It has a true, parabolic mirror that does a great job of focusing the image onto the secondary mirror. I have mixed feelings about the tension springs--which work, though I generally prefer tensioning systems that are more adjustable. Finally, it's offered at a great price for an 8-inch reflector. What I think might be better: The assembly directions for the base could be a little bit better. They are not horrible, but there is certainly room for improvement. There are a couple of places where I had to guess which washer went where. Second, the red dot scope is pretty bad. The way it mounts is great, but the scope itself is subject to lots of parallax and the dot isn't really round. I'd recommend replacing it with something better. I went with a Rigel Systems Quick Finder. Finally, mine arrived wildly out of collimation. I don't know if this is a result of shipping/handling, or if the factory screwed up, but it took me a frustrating hour to get it correctly collimated initially. While I'm no expert at collimating, neither am I a novice. It was so far out that the laser beam shot out the front of the telescope and I had to use a collimating cap at first. Fortunately one was included. Final thoughts: Buy it. The pros vastly outweigh the cons. This is an excellent Newtonian/Dobsonian telescope at a very reasonable price. Pro tip- it isn't exactly light. If you want to move it without separating the OTA and base, you can use a hand cart to safely move it without risking throwing it out of alignment.

Habe das Gerät 10 Tage in Benutzung und seitdem 5x auf den Himmel ausgerichtet in südwestliche Richtung, da unser Balkon nur diese Richtung zulässt. Dort konnte ich dann bisher hauptsächlich den Jupiter sehen mit den 4 größten Monden,so wie einige meiner englischsprachigen Vorrezensenten und so wie Galilei es in etwa sah vor knapp über 400 Jahren. Das alleine ist schon faszinierend genug für mich. Ich erkenne einige der Atmosphärenstreifen und sogar deren Farben. Es ist natürlich nicht überdeutlich präzise und gestochen scharf, was sicher auch auf die Erdatmosphäre zurückzuführen ist, deren flimmern man auch deutlich sehen kann, während man Jupiter beobachtet. Sobald der Mond in o.g. Richtung zu sehen sein wird, freue ich mich auf dessen Beobachtung bereits. Mondfilter habe ich auch schon. Dann schreibe ich evtl. einen Nachtrag. Muss dazu sagen, dass ich die Qualität eines Teleskops nicht wirklich bewerten kann, da mir als Laie jeder Vergleichsmaßstab fehlt. Es ist das erste Teleskop, das ich habe und auch das erste, durch das ich je im Leben schaute. Der Aufbau klappte mit der englischen Anleitung und einem 2-teiligen Youtube-Aufbauvideo, das ich auf halbem Wege dann fand (auch auf englisch), ziemlich gut in ca. 3 Stunden. Natürlich hätte ich eine deutsche Anleitung wesentlich besser gefunden. Dann hätte es wohl nur die halbe Zeit gedauert. Einige Schrauben haben Inch-Maße, dafür nahm ich dann den "Engländer" :-)

Aside from minimal updating on carriers end. My dob came in perfect shape I was surprised by how well its. Constructed, will definitely keep buying from Orion thank you looking forward to ordering more

Un excelente telescopio, que conocí por comentarios en foros y recomendaciones de astrónomos. la relación calidad precio es inmejorable, el telescopio llega en dos paquetes ( uno de ellos enorme, el que trae el tubo) llegó enviado desde holanda y menos de una semana lo tenía en casa. Me daba un poco de miedo de que llegase con algún desperfecto por algún golpe en el envío. Pero afortunadamente el vendedor metió una caja dentro de otra cosa que lo protegió de abundantes golpes en el traslado, como quedó evidenciado por la caja exterior, el telescopio estaba bien protegido por unas piezas de corcho blanco que lo mantenían estable. Ocupa bastante para quien este interesado en el, y es mas grande en realidad de lo que aparenta en las fotos. es muy preciso , y la imagen muy nítida. La base de madera es pesada cosa que lo hace muy estable para usar desde casa, pero es de difícil transporte. El conjunto total son unos 25 kilos. Si algo se hecha de menos es que traiga algún ocular mas, trae uno general de 25 mm pero sería recomendable, pedir con el un par de oculares más, para acercar tener un par de aumentos distintos. un filtro lunar, y un filtro anti contaminación lumínica. Parece por las fotos que trae una pequeña repisa para colocar los objetivos, pero no es así, es un accesorio que no esta incluido, la base dobson trae los agujeros, pero no la repisa ni los tornillos. Es un detalle menor por que los oculares siempre están mejor protegidos en una caja, que expuestos al polvo en la repisa. No le resta calidad a este telescopio recomendado para espacio profundo o lunar, siempre para observación, pero no tanto para planetas por no estar motorizado ni para astro-fotografía por la misma razón, Dato a tener en cuenta para el comprador que lo busque para un uso concreto.

Sono un appassionato di astronomia da più di 5 anni e di telescopi ne ho cambiati molti da modelli base a modelli avanzati e questo telescopio é stato il mio ultimo acquisto. Finalmente ho potuto osservare il firmamento con quel potere risolutivo dei 203mm. Telescopio che posseggo da 2 mesi. #montaggio —Pro— ~Attrezzi di montaggio in dotazione —Contro— ~Difficoltà nel montaggio piedini di gomma ~Nel manuale é specificato che il montaggio dura 30 minuti ma vi assicuro che se ne andranno più di 2 ore. #La struttura del telescopio —Pro— ~Resistente ~Ottimi materiali ~Facile da usare —-contro—- ~Peso eccessivo #Tubo —Pro— ~Metallo resistente ~Ottima qualità delle lenti ~Sistema di viti per la collimazione che non necessitano di cacciavite sia per il primario che per il secondario #Focheggiatore —Pro— ~Qualità ottima ~Messa a fuoco molto precisa anche grazie ad una vite che ne regolano la velocità di rotazione del focheggiatore ~Supporta entrambi gli standard di diametro degli oculari #Cercatore —Pro— ~Buona qualità ~Luminosità puntino regolabile cosa di cui incredibile utilità si nota sin dalle prime osservazioni ~NON é un laser(stando a quanto dice il manuale) cosa fantastica per scongiurare il pericolo di guardarlo. —Contro— ~Non adatto al 100% per osservazioni da città poiché con il cercatore classico é come se si avesse un piccolo binocolo che aiuta la ricerca. Questo fatto si riscontra soprattutto nella ricerca di stelle molto deboli. #Qualità osservativa Vivo in una grande città dove c’è un alto tasso di inquinamento luminoso eppure questo telescopio mi ha stupito con l’oculare in dotazione veramente di ottima qualità a largo campo sono riuscito a osservare la nebulosa di Orione con una risoluzione che non ho mai visto. I pianeti sono pure fantastici con l’oculare in dotazioni si riesce a vedere Saturno con gli anelli distinguendoli bene dal pianeta. ##Conclusioni## Telescopio molto buono a mio parere, il peso potrebbe essere un problema, ma io l’ho risolto acquistando un carrello con le ruote delle stesse dimensioni della base. Il sistema delle molle mi ha stupito, poiché ero scettico sulla loro precisione eppure mi sono dovuto ricredere.Consiglio l’acquisto ad un appassionato esperto e non ad un principiante.In definitiva prodotto valido e di qualità ne consiglio l’acquisto.

Un telescope ,vraiment parfait.. , Tres parfait..tres facile a monter (+ou - 1h en prenant son temps..)un tres bon mirroir primaire...franchement Genial...donne une tres belle image..Aux prochains clients...qui si interessent... ya un petit anneau au centre du mirroir primaire..(mirroir primaire se trouvant fond du telescope ) ...surtout qu'ils ne s'inquitent pas..l'anneau sert a ce que le laser du collimateur soit au centre du petit anneau...pour le reglage du mirroir ( au cas ou.. mirroir casser du a un choc et rachat du meme mirroir, pour un centrage facile du mirroir)..Anneau...qui !!! Vraiment ne gêne en rien a l'observation....Petit anneau dont vous ne verai jamais dans l'oculaire.. , les connaisseurs en astronomie..tant amateurs /qu'amatrices, que professionnels ou professionnelles vous le diront..Un telescope tres parfait a petit prix..apres c'est au futurs clients d'acheters autres oculaires de marques Televue..Explore scientiphic...Baader..pour avoir encore image encore plus parfaite..ya un oculaire avec ce telescope de 25mm qui est bon !!! Donne une belle image...je recommande vraiment ce telescope Orion xt8 ..vraiment parfait...Pouvez faire confiance au vendeur de ce xt8..Tres bon vendeur..vous raconteras pas de betises..je recommande le vendeur..et la vendeuse..voila !!! Tres bonne observation..