Vent: Spent $200 on a cheap telescope and got nothing but blurry dots

I bought this budget refractor from a random online store last year, thought I'd get decent views of Jupiter. Instead, everything was a fuzzy mess and the mount shook if you breathed on it. Has anyone else fallen for those starter scopes that promise way more than they deliver?

2 comments

2 Comments

derekjenkins1mo ago

Faint orange dot" isn't exactly mind-blowing either though.

casey_harris1mo ago

Yeah I fell for the same trap. Bought a 70mm refractor that wobbled like crazy and could barely see Saturn's rings as a smudge. Honestly the best move I made was getting a used Dobsonian from a local classified ad. 6 inch aperture for like $150, built like a tank. The views of Jupiter were actually clear, I could see the cloud bands and even the Great Red Spot as a faint orange dot. The mount was just a tube on a rocker box so no wobble. Cheap refractors are basically just pretty paperweights, you need something with real aperture to cut through the light pollution and atmospheric junk.