Orion GrandView 16-48x65mm Spotting Scope
May 2014 :
On the night of Saturday, April 5th, I visited veteran amateur and good friend Tim Dube in East Douglas, Mass. to try out a new scope I’d recently acquired. Back in January of this year, I got interested in the idea of adding a small spotting (nature) scope to my collection. My requirements were compactness and short length, light weight and ready adaptness for mounting easily on a light, photo/visual tripod, and a 45-degree angled eyepiece yielding a “correct” image. I also wanted a fairly small aperture and variable power with a very low minimum magnification, decent eye relief, good optics with quality coatings, and any other good features I could find in an instrument having a price of $150 to $180. After weeks of comparison window shopping online and indecision over what I wanted most among a large selection available, I settled on Orion’s “GrandView” 65 mm. model, with a zoom range of just 16 to 48 power, length of only 14.5 inches and weight of 2.7 pounds. The low price of just $110 (including shipping!) was both attractive and a bit suspicious to me, but it was low enough that I decided to take a chance. This has been the best value in optical equipment that has come my way in over 20 years, fortunately.
The scope has fine lens coatings that Orion states are fully multi-coated; I won’t quibble as to whether this is technically true or not, but images are pleasingly bright, clear and sharp right to the edge of the field, over the entire magnification range, to boot. The focus is smooth and positive and an adjustable ring around the body permits easy rotation of the eyepiece orientation to suit any mounting application. A retracting objective lens dew/glare shield works well and is built right into the scope. I’m especially pleased with the lens caps, which are some of the best I’ve seen on most telescopes – a nice surprise for a price of $110, total. (The eyepiece cover actually threads into a secure position and won’t fall off; the main lens cap has dual-opposed, spring-loaded locking tabs that snap into place nicely within the objective lens shield.) A clever, zippered soft carry case that can be opened at both ends but remain in place to cover the scope body for a “dew jacket” is also standard. I’ve split 8 arc-second double stars with this little spotting scope and can easily make out contrasting detail in Jupiter’s atmospheric belts, so I expect to have nice views of Mercury during its evening apparition in late May. Mercury actually is the biggest reason I bought the spotter. I wanted a 45-degree angled view of very low altitude objects without the bother of heavier scopes that require more substantial mountings, and I can’t mount my Astroscan on a conventional tripod, although its ease of setup under different conditions is normally a great asset. Having the ability to see a true-orientation (correct image) view of certain celestial objects can be a big help when star-hopping by using an atlas or charts, although many telescope purists would say that the light loss inherent in the prism optical system employed in such spotting scopes is a liability. I won’t argue such technical points here – all I can say is a small scope such as this 65 mm. that works as nicely as it does is more than satisfactory for some of what I do in visual astronomy, and it’s great for low power enthusiasts like me.
