Review: Tasco Galaxsee 114375

[iceman (Mike)]

Pete Moulton (PeteMo) has written an review of the Tasco Galaxsee 114375. It's an insight into what you really get for a $250 telescope.

You can read the review on the IceInSpace Equipment Reviews page, or directly by clicking on the link below:

Tasco Galaxsee 114375

Thanks to Pete for writing the review. If you'd like to contribute a review, article or other content to IceInSpace, please contact me.

[iceman (Mike)]

Review uploaded.

[ving (David)]

thanks for the article peter. I too started with a small scope, a 60mm f11 (i think) ebay refractor to be precise. i recon your tasco was 100% better but still the little refractor showed me wnought stuff to get me interested it definitely showed me more of the moon and planets than any binocular could

[PeteMo (Pete)]

Thanks Iceman and Ving
Thought I'd have a go at writing a review as there was nothing in the no-mans-land of sub $350 scopes.

Most people's first contact with telescopes is either at a camera shop or Australian Geographic, so these are typically all people know about. We also forget that not so long ago a 4.5" Newtonian was cool, and 8" was considered "really serious" for the likes of Patrick Moore. Now we think of an 8" as entry level compared with the 10", 12" 16" 25+" dobsons that we can now get.

If I had the readies (and consent from 'She who must be obeyed') I'd be looking at a 25" Obsession scope from California and stick it in a large Sirius Observatory Dome, not forgetting a shed load of eyepieces.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Thanks for the review, Pete. One thing worth mentioning is that with these little and short tube Newts, collimation is often neglected yet it is critical, especially for high power observing.

IMO, an 80mm long tube achromat (like those sold by AOE eg) is probably a better choice at this price point especially for someone buying their first scope. Jupiter and Saturn and not merely "fat stars", but you can easily see the two main equatorial belts on Jupiter, and the great red spot. Shadow transits are challenging but still doable. The Cassini division in Saturn's rings is also easily seen. With a 4.5" Newt these details are a lot harder to get, unless the mirror is well figured, the scope well set up and collimated.

I do not know about the Tasco Galaxsee but many of the cheaper 4.5" Newts are poorly made/designed and can never be collimated properly because of the bad positioning and lack of sufficient adjustment on the secondary.

[PeteMo (Pete)]

Thanks for those points Steve.
The reason I broke the cost down was to show people just how much, really how little, goes on the business end of things, to emphasise the corner cutting. I also used the cheapest possible prices for the mount and red dot scope. The scope is borderline on being too heavy for the mount, yet it would be lost on a medium or heavy duty mount.
The primary mirror screws are fairly good. Occasionally, the two screws for the Red Dot sight come lose and need re-tightening.
The short focal length of the scope will also show up failings in the eyepiece.
I believe the MA eyepieces that come with the Galaxsee are Kelner based and the SR is a Super Ramsden affair.

[Robster (Robert)]

Pete,

Your review was a most enjoyable read indeed. I particularly appreciated your approach to these "low end" scopes. I have a Celestron 130SLT which is the next size up from your scope and I could appreciate many of your comments re Usable Magnification versus Theoretical Magnification.

My own website goes into a lot of the areas you covered re being appreciative of what your scope can do and having fun with it. That is a positive approach to our passion of sky watching.

Robster
Woy Woy NSW

[Stephen65]

My concern would be in recommending an f/4.4 reflector to a beginner. Such a fast focal ratio newt is going to be tricky to collimate, show a lot of coma and be very demanding on the cheap eyepieces that come with it.

If the best alternative - saving up an extra $100 or so for a 6" dob - isn't possible then a decent 70mm refractor would be a lot more user-friendly.

[Rob_K]

Very nice review Peter! Congratulations! As you can tell by my signature, I'm a user of a similar 114mm Tasco scope (but longer FL), and I'm rapt in it! Had it for over two years now, and am very pleased with its performance. Started with a "plastic fantastic" small refractor - this was a big step up! I have got over any "aperture fever" I may have had early on, and am completely satisfied with the scope. Mind you, I do have very dark skies too, and I lashed out on reasonably decent eyepieces (Celestron X-Cel, not exactly Naglers but great all-round performers on these scopes - nice Plossls would be perfectly adequate).

I use almost exclusively about 50x magnification (just under with 21mm EP in my scope), 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 are awesome - bright pinpoint stars against a black background.

DSOs? People say you won't see much in these scopes, but it's not true. With practice, the sky's the limit! Well, not quite true, there are limits as with any scope . But now I'm hunting down and seeing faint galaxies around the mag 12-13 range, and I've seen over a hundred globular clusters down to middle 11s. So you can imagine the detail you can draw out of brighter DSOs, again with practice. Tons of detail on Jupiter including clear shadow transits, Cassini Div on Saturn, etc. Of course, these objects/features simply weren't there when I first used the scope.

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 that you don't get with a basic dob. With or without motors, they also may satisfy the need in some beginners for a bit of good mechanical action and complexity going on, rather than a dumb push-and-pull.

Anyway, anyone got a Obsession for sale?

Cheers -

[starsearcher (Peter)]

Hi Pete,
Thanks so much for writing this.
I'm a total newbie searching for my first scope in eBay and not knowing what to get except for something Newtonian with 114aperture and 1000 focal length.
I browsed for Tasco 375 and found your article to give me a better insight into my first scope. I didn't know the limiting factor for magnification was the mirror, and so if I've only budget for a 4.5" aperture, I can't expect more than 135x in reality.
I think a longer focal length would help in sharper and better magnification (e.g. 1000mm vs 500mm with the same mirror aperture).

You also introduced me to join this site from reading your article.

Thanks again
Peter Loo

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Peter
to IceInSpace!

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Hi Peter, mate to IIS.

I had looked into getting a scope like this as large finder. One thing I found was that just about all 4.5" 1000mm scopes are 4.5" 500mm scopes with a very poor barlow lens shoved into the end of the draw tube of the focuser. CAUTION. Using another barlow in this case will only further deteoriate the potential image even further. You would be much better of getting a 4.5" 900mm scope. They too will be using spherical mirrors, but as mentioned, the problems posed by this mirror design is much less noticeable at this focal ratio.

These scopes are best suited as rich field telescopes, where, using a good eyepiece, they will be a joy to use.

I still have the instructions of my original 2" Tasco refractor from nearly 30 years ago. Then they did mention the 'maths' of telescopes & the practical limitations. Today these limitations seem to have been left by-the-by with many 'brands' in order to catch the unwary buyer.

Mental.

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

Great review, i think at some point everyone owns either a Tasco scope, or a scope like this, i remember having on of these, some 23 years ago, although mine was the longer focal length "Luminova" model in bright red, although i still have very fond memories of find M57 overhead with something like this as a spotty 17 year old

oh, and hello !!

[TinyBlueDot (John)]

Thanks for the review, Peter. This very model is my current scope (till a Tak Mewlon 210 or 250 comes along, that is....)

My Galaxsee was a freebie, so I have no financial input to the thing- and thus a lower expectation of its performance - and seeing as stars are not dots, and the bigger planets' outlines are all quivery and somewhat smudged - that's probably a good thing!!!

Even so, it has shown up Jupiter's bands in fleeting moments of good seeing, and Saturn's rings can just be made out (I have only a 10mm eyepiece with my scope, so only have the one level of magnification available) Plenty of nice clusters and double stars have been seen through it, even M71 and the Coathanger in my (so far) fruitless search for comet Garradd. Nebula can be seen even from my suburban backyard, though there is no real color to be made out in them, sort of a greyish green mostly.

The mount it was on is a real wobbler, and I've put mine onto a Arca-Swiss B1 ballhead/Gitzo G326 tripod I had left over from my photography days. It is a real challenge to try to find something in the sky, basically try to point it in the general direction of wanted object and twist the controls here and there (and the back-to-front/upside down image doesn't help matters....!!!)

Even so, it's still plenty of fun - I've not set the bar too high - and when I get my Mewlon it'll be interesting to see the difference. My wife and daughters are impressed with having seen the moon up (relatively) close, planets, nebulae, clusters; just need to find them a comet to peer at.....

Cheers
John

[dave brock]

I just bought a second hand Galaxsee on Trade-Me (NZ) for no other reason than it was local, was cheap and I was bored. It looks like an older model than reviewed here, with a 5x24mm? finder.
The secondary in it was only 28mm so the 114mm dia. 500mm f/l primary was effectively stopped down to about 80mm (secondary-focal plane about 175mm). This is assumably to counteract the fact that the primary is spherical (a very nicely polished sphere I must say).
I've replaced the secondary with a 37mm one (still a bit undersize). It star-tests a lot worse and has poorer images with the new secondary as expected so I will refigure the primary.
So I will mention as well, if you're looking to buy a 114mm scope then go for a longer focal length one. This one is effectively an 80mm f/6.25 with a 35% obstruction.
Dave

[Makronti]

You can see a lot with a small scope like this. But I will agree... A 6" dobson for $350 would be a better buy as the extra $100 gets a 6" mirror that collects almost twice the light of the Tasco's 4.5" mirror, and at least double the focal length.

Congratulations. It's a very nice review. Thank you.