Not a bad development overall. It appears the unit is at least partly useable and not completely unsafe. From what I've seen here, I think buyers can be reasonably expected to use the telescope in a manner that is safe for them and those in their care, making this no different to other freely available, dangerous-if-not-used-correctly products. Always room for improvement of course.
Tried it out at night last night. Worked OK on the moon. The 20mm EP produced a nice image. Of course it is only 17X!
The supplied EPS are Huygens of 20mm and 4mm. They also have a 2x barlow. All these have a cheap, plastic feel and apart from the 20mm, the views are awful. Barlowing the 20 introduced some horrible colour fringes. I tried a 10mm plossl as a comparison and it was much better. As for the 4mm, the less said the better!!
I then saw if I could spot M42 and yes it was findable and visible, but realistically, this scope is really only for looking at the moon.
It also comes with an (alleged) smart phone adapter which consists of an oval plate with suction cups and a ring to slip over an EP. Couldn't get my phone to stick to it!!
So overall a pretty crappy piece of kit, on a slightly better mount with some major safety concerns if used as a solar scope. The simple fact that it has no protective cap for the solar film filter is a safety issue all by itself!!
In agreement with all the above recent comments from those who bought one.
Here are pics through Samsung S7 with 20mm eyepiece. No Sunspots but image is pleasant to look at.
The phone holder is for me non trustworthy (phone kept popping off) to hold my S7 phone, so phone was held at the eyepiece.
In all if used properly a cheap grab n go scope to look at our own star and that's its big and only plus.
I think a quality filter could be bought for around the $100 mark from Bintel or Sirius Optics or Astro Petes, so if you have a 50-70mm refractor this would be a better choice.
I still see safety issues with this simply because it is labelled as a Solar Telescope and when the warning stickers have peeled off, the manual is lost, the filter missing/damaged and it has a 2nd or 3rd owner in years to come I could see some concerns arising. That in itself may raise concerns over liability, where/when bought etc.
As noted by others is the lack of a separate cap on the scope, so the filter will likely stay on the scope and that's where potential damage will result. Any reasonable person with a bit of knowledge should have foreseen such a probability and it is beyond belief that it has safety approvals just on this alone, as well as having no "safe" storage box for the filter.
Will I use it from here on? yes probably look at the Sun most clear days and show the grandkids as well.
But I wont onsell it ever, will destroy and bin it if any damage occurs to scope/filter.
With all the hype about the dangers of cheap so-called solar telescopes,
am I the only one who thinks it is funny that the classifieds currently includes a solar telescope for sale by "Blindman".
In agreement with all the above recent comments from those who bought one.
Here are pics through Samsung S7 with 20mm eyepiece. No Sunspots but image is pleasant to look at.
The phone holder is for me non trustworthy (phone kept popping off) to hold my S7 phone, so phone was held at the eyepiece.
In all if used properly a cheap grab n go scope to look at our own star and that's its big and only plus.
Could the lack of sunspots at the moment be due to a solar minimum?
With all the hype about the dangers of cheap so-called solar telescopes,
am I the only one who thinks it is funny that the classifieds currently includes a solar telescope for sale by "Blindman".
Very similar result here Peter - tho also had probs getting the phone to stick/grab, so just took a wild quicky, not even lined up straight, Lol prob had the cam lens too far way from the EP aswell, can slide the ph adapter down, bringing the ep exit lens closer to the cam lens.
A better quality ep should improve things a bit, I have a 16mm with a 'proud' exit lens so can virtually have the ph cam right against it, also cover the ph & ep with a dark cloth to rid stray light etc, ?
Very similar result here Peter - tho also had probs getting the phone to stick/grab, so just took a wild quicky, not even lined up straight, Lol prob had the cam lens too far way from the EP aswell, can slide the ph adapter down, bringing the ep exit lens closer to the cam lens.
A better quality ep should improve things a bit, I have a 16mm with a 'proud' exit lens so can virtually have the ph cam right against it, also cover the ph & ep with a dark cloth to rid stray light etc, ?
Might wait for a sunspot and try again,
Good ideas there Bob, will try my 15mm with a dark cloth and see what results are.
Hi all!
Sorry to resurrect an older thread, but I had the opportunity to have a go with this cheap ALDI scope the other night and would like to report my findings.
As a disclaimer, I consider myself a moderately experienced observer and user of telescopes, having made about 1500 observations of different objects since 2008 in a variety of scopes, so I found it fairly easy to find objects. A raw beginner may not have this advantage.
I used this scope here in Colac on a fairly good night, transparency was good and light pollution was moderate for here, helped by the nice dry air! I only used the 20mm ep supplied with the scope, the barlow and 4mm are horrible junk. I was able to locate and observe M42/M43 along with NGC1977, M45, M47, M46, M41, NGC3372 (eta Carina nebula), NGC2070 (Tarantula nebula), NGC104 (47 Tucanae) and IC2602 (Southern Pleiades). As mentioned I am reasonably well versed in finding these sorts of objects with a wide field afforded by this sort of scope.
Firstly, the good points!
1) Wide field made navigating relatively easy, if you know where you are going.
2) stars were fairly sharp across the field
3) bright nebulosity was clearly seen on larger objects
4) moving the scope was easy with the alt/az and tripod, easy to adjust. Unlike the dob version of this scope, you could move it without the entire scope moving
5) comfortable height, no need to rest on a table top
6) it is fixed collimation, but on mine it was reasonably close. Only checked it with a collimation cap, and there is no centre spot, but useable
Next, things that could be better!
1) the only way to find anything is line up the tube by eye with the area you want to search and the rove around looking for a landmark.
2) no finder of any kind
3) the inverted view created by a newt may be very confusing for a beginner
Now the bad stuff
1) using a solar filter as a cap is dangerous (as mentioned before)
2) eyepieces are ordinary, 20mm is useable, barlow and 4mm need to go in the bin
3) smart phone adapter is complete rubbish.
4) overall safety concerns of a cheap solar scope
Overall, I was quite impressed for a $100 scope. If they had done the exact same thing bit put a simple 1x finder, not even a red, just a couple of small rings that you could line up with a bright star instead of the solar filter, the crap eps and the phone adapter, this would be a passable little unit to give a child to whet the appetite for night time use. If I had a 10yo's eyes, I would probably enjoy it more. But as a solar scope it is a fail.
Great work Malcolm.
One wonders who and how these ( and many things really) are designed.
It sounds that with only a few changes this would be a useful unit.
I thank you for taking the time to present your comprehensive report.
Alex
