[Rob_K]

Sandyinspace, I’ve had a 114mm Tasco for a few years now and reckon it’s a great little scope. The portability is key – leave it set up in your house and you can carry it in and out with one hand, whenever you want. Cool-down is quick with the small mirror. There’s a review on this forum for a very similar Tasco model:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=41,358,0,0,1,0

The eyepieces that came with it were not that good, so I lashed out on reasonably decent eyepieces (21mm & 8mm Celestron X-Cel), but cheap Plossls would be perfectly adequate.

I use almost exclusively about 50x magnification (actually just under with 21mm EP in my scope, at 900mm focal length), only going up on bright stuff like planets and the moon, and the odd DSO that will handle higher mags at this aperture (eg Dumbbell Nebula). The views at low power are awesome if you’ve got reasonably dark skies - bright pinpoint stars against a black background.

People say you won't see much in these scopes, but it's not true. With lots of practice, you can see all sorts of faint fuzzies, but high magnification is not really an option because you run out of light. In time, you will be able to see detail on Jupiter including clear shadow transits, Cassini Division on Saturn, etc. Of course, faint fuzzies and planetary detail simply weren't there the first time I used the scope, LOL.

The other thing with these beginner's scopes with EQ mounts is that they are excellent training for later on, if you decide to get into imaging. They teach you the apparent movements of the stars, and the mechanics of locating or following celestial objects. All good grounding! So enjoy!

Cheers -