Orion's "Transporter" (70mm F5 telescope)

Anyone ever buy one? Was it any good
or just "junk" (Orion's 30 day satisfaction
warranty no doubt would be good news
here) Thinking of getting one, selling
the mini-EQ-1 tripod and red dot finder
on Astromart as I only need the OTA.
(with its non-standard screw in diagonal)

Jerome Bigge
Member, Muskegon Astronomical Society
Author of the "Warlady" & "Wartime" series.
Download at "http://members.tripod.com/~jbigge"

"Jerome Bigge" wrote in message
...

Anyone ever buy one? Was it any good
or just "junk" (Orion's 30 day satisfaction
warranty no doubt would be good news
here) Thinking of getting one, selling
the mini-EQ-1 tripod and red dot finder
on Astromart as I only need the OTA.
(with its non-standard screw in diagonal)

I have one and keep it in my car. You're right
about the mini-EQ-1 tripod -- get rid of it
although I doubt if you'll get much for it.

I already had a regular EQ-1 on a full sized
tripod, and, with that, the Transporter works
well for what it is -- a very short focal length
2.8" telescope. It's good for "star sweeping"
and, with some help, it's OK for the moon.
With such a short focal length, it's not good
for planets. But, with dark enough skies, it'll
give a killer view of M31. The red dot finder
is all you need when using thistelescope;
but getting rid of the finder won't hurt performance
much because the field of view is so wide.

It's also good on a photo tripod (which I also
keep in my car) because the wide true FOV
minimizes the amount of recentering that you
will have to do.

Just don't push the magnification -- 70mm
won't hold up. My 14 mm Pentax XL
eyepiece gives great views at 25X and
my 9mm Nagler will give just under 40X.
With the wide AFOV these give very nice
views of star fields.

(Both of these eyepieces cost nearly twice
what the Transporter sells for, and, no, I didn't
buy them for this little telescope; I already had
them and just decided to see how they'd work
with it.)

Bottom line: it is what it is, a small
aperture, short focal length achromat (meaning
there is some false color visible).
Understand its limitations and don't
push it and it does its job.


Jerome Bigge
Member, Muskegon Astronomical Society
Author of the "Warlady" & "Wartime" series.
Download at "http://members.tripod.com/~jbigge"



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