Orion GoScope 80mm Tabletop Refractor Telescope Review

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Do you want to know more about the Orion GoScope 80mm tabletop telescope?

If so read on. The Orion GoScope 80mm Tabletop Refractor telescope – a great refractor telescope for the amateur astronomer. It’s worth noting that Orion has been making telescopes (check out the Orion 4.5 Starblast) now for many years and produced some of the best scopes on the market today.

One mistake that many novice astronomers make it’s that they buy a telescope from some high street gadget or electronics shop.

The packaging always looks the same, colorful images of Saturn, Jupiter and other planets, but unfortunately the telescope rarely lives up to the promises that it makes on the box – usually because of a mixture of cheap optics and poor design.

Not so with the Orion GoScope 80mm Tabletop Refractor Telescope

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Tabletop Telescope

One thing that became very apparent while carrying out this Orion GoScope 80mm Tabletop refractor telescope review, is that this model is one of the more unique telescopes that we’ve seen because, for once, it doesn’t feature a tripod.

Instead, this GoScope is designed to be placed on a table when in use. This makes the Orion GoScope 80 an extremely portable telescope, which can be moved from room to room as and when you see fit, plus it’s also more than portable enough to be placed in a backpack and taken into the great outdoors.

And even though this telescope doesn’t come with one, it does have the ability to be fitted onto a tripod if you wish

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Alt-Azimuth Mount

This Orion telescope uses an AZ mount so you will be somewhat restricted in that it can only move along 4-axes (up, down, left, and right) This is less versatile than an EQ or Dobsonian mount for example.

That being said the alt-azimuth mount suits this particular 80mm refractor telescope design because it’s not designed for sophisticated star gazing if that makes any sense?

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80mm Refractor

The Orion GoScope 80mm is a refracting telescope, so it uses lenses to focus the light into your eyepiece. But one thing that distinguishes it from other pocket-friendly refractors, is the Orion GoScope 80 AZ has an 80mm aperture, which captures 70% more light than a 60mm refractor, and 30% more light than a 70mm refractor.

As you can see a tiny increase in aperture can give you an enormous increase in the clarity of the images, which is so important when you want to examine deep-sky objects like the Orion Nebula for example.

This telescope is also capable of giving you stunning views of the objects in our own solar system too – so be prepared for being able to see our own planets in more detail than you might expect from a telescope in this price range.

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High-Quality Optics

The 1.25-inch fitting on this telescope provides the docking for the 10mm and 20mm eyepieces supplied with this GoScope.

Using the 10mm eyepiece allows for a high-definition view of our closest solar body, the Moon, while swapping that out for the 20mm eyepiece the magnification power jumps up to 35x, which gives you a detailed view of the deep-sky objects outside our own planetary system.

Remember you can always add a Barlow lens to boost the power available with this scope.

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Additional Features

As you would expect on any telescope from the  Orion brand, the GoScope comes with a finder scope in the form of the EZ Finder II. This finder scope has a red-dot sight which makes targeting stars, planets, or moons very easy – even for the absolute beginner.

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Price

At the time of writing, the Orion GoScope 80mm refractor telescope is priced at around £150, (also check out the Orion GoScope 70mm)which means it offers fantastic value for money. It’s not the best telescope ever made but for less than £140 it’s definitely one of the best tabletop telescopes we’ve ever had a chance to review.

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Features

• Bring the cosmos to your table! This little wonder telescope packs a big performance punch with its 80mm aperture refractor optics and compact portable tabletop base
• Observe the Moon, planets, star clusters and bright cloudy nebulas
• EZ Finder II red-dot sight makes it easy to accurately aim the Go Scope, then you can view them through the included 20mm or 10mm 1.25-Inch telescope eyepieces
• Lightweight design lets you take the Go Scope anywhere and its base can be easily mounted on a tripod with a 3/8 inch or 1/4-20 threaded post
• Ideal for beginners, the Go Scope 80mm collects over 70% more light than a 60mm refractor telescope

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Take a look at some similar products

Still not sure? Then take a look at these similar products before you click that buy button:

Orion Astroview 90mm Equatorial Refractor Telescope – Review

Orion 10022 StarMax 90mm TableTop Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope

Orion 10015 StarBlast 4.5 Astro Reflector Telescope (Teal)

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Verdict

One thing that became very apparent while doing this Orion GoScope 80mm Tabletop Refractor Telescope Review, is that this scope is an ideal entry-level telescope ( as is the Celestron AstroMaster 102az ) and is suitable for all ages.

Some people might not like the fact that it uses an alt-azimuth mount instead of an EQ one, but the reality is that an EQ mount is just too much work for people who don’t understand the benefits of using one.

Even if you have an existing telescope the Orion Tabletop telescope (also check out the Orion StarMax 90mm TableTop Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope) would be an ideal household/backup scope for those solar events you can’t get outside in time to checkout.

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