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As its name suggests, the SkyScanner 100mm is great for looking up at the sky. The short focal length produces great low power wide field views with the included eyepieces. I would highly recommend using the SkyScanner 100 for scanning the Milky Way if it can be seen from your location. A small, inexpensive refractor may do a slightly better job on the planets than the Z100, but the Z100’s larger aperture makes it superior for viewing deep-sky objects, and it’s also far more lightweight, compact, and portable than a refractor. Normally, the SkyScanner 100 is used on a table or stand of some type. However, on the bottom of the base is a standard ¼ 20 attachment point, which will allow you to place the entire unit on a photo type tripod or any other kind of tripod or stand that accepts ¼ 20 devices and can support the scope’s 6-pound weight. That said, its short focal length of 400mm means its usable magnification is probably only between 100x and 150x. This is fine for large, bright objects, such as Jupiter, Saturn, multiple stars, and open star clusters. It could also be used for larger nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula, but many planetary nebulae, galaxies, and globular clusters won’t show well.
The 10mm eyepiece (40x) was able to show the north and south equatorial belts in the planet’s atmosphere, but neither of the polar regions could be seen. Since the disc was so bright, a filter may have helped to bring out more detail (especially if used with a Barlow lens), but overall the view was clear and the features were easy to see. If you want to go higher in magnification for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, globular clusters and the like, you will need shorter focal length eyepieces or a Barlow lens. A 3X Barlow would work quite well with the included eyepieces as it would take the 20X eyepiece to 60X and the 40X eyepiece to 120X. That would give you four magnifications, which would be plenty for most targets and should match up well with the SkyScanner’s capabilities.Very large telescopes are also typically very heavy, bulky things that may be too difficult to reliably take outside, are harder to transport, and take up somewhat more space. Very large telescopes cost much more due to material and labor costs. If you’ve had some previous experience with reflector telescopes, you’re probably aware that the primary and secondary mirrors may need some re-alignment over time. Re-aligning the mirrors is called collimation, and it can be done relatively easily by adjusting the thumbscrews at the bottom of the optical tube. The Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro is essentially a higher-priced copycat of the Zhumell Z114 and works well apart from the fact that it costs as much as a larger aperture scope. We would recommend it if you cannot find a Z114 available, however. This can easily happen when switching eyepieces, especially if you’ve tightened the focuser screws to hold the eyepiece in place. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem normally, except that the barrels of the eyepieces are grooved, making it a little harder to insert and remove. (Eyepieces with a smooth barrel are easier to use.)
The Z130 has a big brother: The 6” f/5 Orion StarBlast 6, which is heavier and a LOT bulkier, stretching the plausibility of what you could put on a table or stool. The OneSky’s older brother, the Heritage 150P, is a seriously better choice at that size, the collapsibility and lower weight would then really make a difference. The 150P is also a better deal, as I’ve seen it go for cheaper than a full-size 6” Dobsonian. Celestron 1.25″ Moon Filter – pretty much an essential accessory, this filter reduces the glare of the Moon and allows you to observe it without being dazzled. It’s also “neutral density,” meaning that it produces a natural color view of the Moon, and is compatible with the Z100. The maximum possible magnification with this telescope is 200x, but in practice, you’ll want to stay around 150x or lower. In both cases, you’ll need to combine high power eyepieces with a quality barlow lens.Using the included 20 mm eyepiece, you get 20X and approximately a 2-degree field of view. This combination will work well for stars hoping to find a wide range of targets. The included 10 mm eyepiece provides a 40X image and about 1-degree field of view. This will work well for the Moon, Venus, and open clusters. The central obstruction of Newtonians slightly reduces their contrast and resolution compared to a refractor of the same size. (However, the cost of a good refractor is immense compared to a Dobsonian of the same size.) Most Newtonian reflectors have four spider vanes which hold up the secondary mirror, producing diffraction spikes. Some people like them, but others find them distracting. SCTs, Maks, and Refractors don’t have spikes. I didn't know what bortle was, but just looked it up and I'm in bortle 5, just on the outskirts of bortle 4 by 500m, so easy enough to potentially go where a little less light pollution too. I'll just openly admit I've stalked some of your posts after you were tagged, and saw you mention Southampton...I'm in Bognor Regis.
Those two brands are just two names for the exact same telescope and is the best dobsonian telescope in the 8″ aperture group. The Apertura AD8 and the Zhumell Z8 differ only in name; they are exactly identical in every other way–same optics, same accessories, same quality, same appearance aside from the logos. Beware that they do differ in price and availability, though! The Orion-SkyLine, Zhumell, and Apertura Dobsonians are both sourced from Guan Sheng Optical in Taiwan, and outside of the USA, they’re usually marketed under the GSO Deluxe Dobsonian label (albeit with a different paint job and sometimes different accessories). The fact that Zhumell chose to use a parabolic mirror in this small, inexpensive reflector implies that the image will be correspondingly better too. Every Messier object is within reach, even from the light-polluted suburbs. You will have to use the scope for a while and train your eye and your brain to observe faint objects–observing experience is worth magnitudes. Keeping a sketchbook or log of the objects you see at the eyepiece will train your brain to see finer details. If you cannot get ahold of a Zhumell Z114, the Orion StarBlast 4.5 Astro is almost identical, but is priced much higher and thus isn’t really a good deal.
Technical Specifications
The image above was taken on August 17th 2021 and shows the waxing gibbous Moon. It was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S10+ smartphone manually held up to the eyepiece, the 17mm eyepiece that came with the telescope and a Celestron neutral density lunar filter (not supplied.) Besides cropping, the image is unprocessed. However, we think this attractive little red scope would look great on a bookshelf or displayed in plain sight. It would make a great conversation piece when it is not gathering starlight. The Summer Beehive (IC 4665) in Ophiuchus also showed nicely with both eyepieces, with about 10-15 bright blue-white stars and a broad scattering of fainter stars being visible with the 10mm (40x) eyepiece. Due to the wave nature of light, all else being equal, the telescope with the largest aperture has the highest resolution, so you can reach higher magnifications. The Z100 has a parabolic mirror, which is better for astronomy than the spherical mirrors typically found in the smaller, inexpensive reflector telescopes. Parabolic mirrors have a single point of focus, so stars should appear as sharp points of light rather than appearing slightly distorted as you’d get with a spherical mirror.
The best Dobsonian telescope for you is whichever one you can afford. If you have more than a thousand dollars, get a 12 inch dobsonian. You can absolutely make that work, as long as you can handle the bulk and weight. The Messier List is a popular first-observing list for new telescope owners. If you can get to a moderately dark location, the SkyScanner will likely be able to show you most of the 110 targetsin the Messier Catalog. Final Verdict A section on using the eyepieces is next before a short explanation of altitude and azimuth, focusing the image and then aligning the finderscope. Explore Scientific FirstLight 130: These are different optics, with a shorter focal length. Available as an OTA, or on their Twilight Altaz mount, or on their EXOS Nano Equatorial mount. The OTA is more affordable, but all the mounted options are more expensive. This OTA must be much lighter because it only uses a 2.2 lbs counterweight. (For the record, I tried my Z130 on my EXOS Nano EQ3--it needed more than 4.4 lbs counterweight. An additional 2.2lbs counterweight would do it, and it’d be more sturdy than the EQ2 mounts from Synta.) It’s worth noting that the actual view was far superior to the image presented here; for example, although the image shows a little chromatic aberration on the lower left edge of the Moon, there was none visible at the time (although the 10mm eyepiece did have some slight aberration.) In fact, it was probably one of the best views of the Moon I’ve seen in some time.The telescope also uses a “Red Dot Finder,” which projects a little red dot through a small window out into the sky. Though I like red dot finders fine for smaller scopes, on a telescope with a focal length of 1200mm, a red dot finder isn’t really enough to reliably find many objects, which require star-hopping using asterisms that are too dim to see with your eye, and too large to fit into the field of view of a big telescope. The other 6″ Dobsonian telescopes use real optical straight-thru finderscopes instead, and though they’re slightly less pleasant ergonomically, they are better for star-hopping. You might be able to see Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot with the Z100, but you’ll need to know when it’s visible and you’ll probably need a high magnification and – again – a filter to detect it.)
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