Side by Side Comparison of: Barska vs John A Read vs Adams Media vs Firefly Books vs Dover Publications Inc.

Great for lunar gazing. It came to my deployed ship in 2013 and I used it at night on the fantail. Made deployment that much more bearable. Still have it in 2017 and looked at Saturn with it.

Unit was easy to assemble with a clear image not to difficult to obtain. Lite weight and easy to move, this is a great starter unit before moving on to bigger and better.

I bought this for my kids, but once I took my first look at the moon through the smaller lens I was hooked. The tripod is a little wobbly so a different tripod should help with being able to stay on one object but overall this is a GREAT telescope for the money. I recommend this highly if you are looking for a beginner telescope.

Very good starter telescope. Also works for spotting at target shooting.

I bought two of the BARSKA Starwatcher 400x70mm telescopes for my two grandsons. Their faces lit up when they opened them - boys love their toys. It was fairly easy to set up, and we are planning to do some daytime field scoping to practice using them, before using them at night to look at the moon and stars. These were well worth the money for a beginner telescope, since you do get a table top tripod with it. You can always purchase an inexpensive larger camera tripod later. I also got The Everything Kids' Astronomy Book for each of them. I liked what I saw in the book, but haven't heard from the boys what they think. I thought it would be good to have some type of easy to read reference for them.

A wonderful item for the price. Comes with its own carrying case and is perfect for those learning about the universe. Great quality. It made a perfect gift for my 17 year old granddaughter.

got it for an eleven year old who wanted to see the stars. he likes it but it has a learning curve when you try to find them. but for the price you cant beat it to see if its a hobby he is going to enjoy.

My husband has really enjoyed this for a beginner scope. Great Quality for the price, bags make it easy to tote around.

Great beginner telescope. We can see the moon very clearly - on a clear and bright night, we can make out craters and other large features.We can find Jupiter and Saturn, although they are very small. We could just barely make out the equatorial bands on Jupiter and barely make out the rings of Saturn. Easy to set up and find objects, a little hard to make small adjustments when viewing.

I am really just a beginner when it comes to star gazing. I purchased this telescope because it did get some good reviews and also the price was very reasonable. I feel its a very good telescope. It does just what its suppose to do. The moon looks great when viewing through this as do the stars. If star gazing is more of a hobby for you then I wouod recommend this scope. The only down fall is the tripod size. The small tripod just isn't practical. I went and purchased a full size tripod from walmart for about 12 bucks and it works better for my needs. Like I said, you can't beat this for the price.

For the price, it's well worth it.

My daughter loves this. We (cough, Santa) gave this to her for Christmas. We were able to see the amazing full moon in all of it's crater-ours glory. For a guy who has never touched a telescope, this was insanely easy to use. Intuitive and quick to set up and get going. It seemed to be made of quality materials and was easy to focus. I would give it a 5 star rating but I have no reference with telescopes and while I am perfectly satisfied with this product I recognize that I may be basking in my ignorant bliss. I can honestly say this is the telescope of my budget restricted dreams.

Good for looking at the moon that is about it. Gave it three stars because for looking at the moon it is better than binoculars but only slightly. not good for looking at the Planets a better telescope will be needed for that.

We bought this for my 11 year old daughter and it's.... not what we expected. Next time we will spend more money and get what we really want (which is a telescope that can SHOW you the Moon and also some of the closest planets) We haven't been able to see much of anything with this. I suspect a pair of binoculars are more effective.

Out of the bag and box it works ok. Great views of the moon and it's features, but limited with others. This has been hampered due to use through windows due to weather. Recommended to get a larger tripod for use as this one is far too small. It is very difficult to focus with the 4mm lens. It is a great size for travel.

Great little telescope and delivery was quick as promised but i gave it a three star rating because of enclosed instructions. They were so confusing i went to a friendly local place and smiled nicely and asked for assistance in assembling it. I thought pieces were missing but not so; i am usually good in this stuff and like assembling stuff but this one had me scrambling to understand. Even the nice guy who helped was surprised. . Eventually it got put together. These directions should be written as if we know nothing as usually that is true. Other than that little set back, and now knowing that a good pair of field glasses also suffices as well, i am ok with what i bought.

I bought this as a way to see if my wife's new astronomy hobby was going to be a serious hobby or not. This scope works fine for the moon, but anything else you see will more or less look the same as with the naked eye.A few issues we find:1. Its not very stable. Not the tripod itself, but every part feels loose, so when you adjust the x or y axis you have to over adjust because it will 'snap back' a few notches.2. The only supplied eye piece that works is the 20x. the 3x barlow and the 100x apparently either don't work correctly on mine, or don't work at all. I mean its not hard to find the moon, and all I see with either of those pieces (together or separate) is black.3. The scope can't tilt too far back with the supplied tripod, so you're very limited in what's in your viewing angle.That being said, all it took was one look at the moon with the 20x eye piece for us to realize this is going to end up being a full blown (and expensive) hobby that my wife really enjoys.

I'm not an experienced telescope user or astronomer and so some of the troubles I had may not be applicable to others.* To begin with, I was expecting aluminium tubing for telescope's body, but the plastic/PVC pipe is not bad either!* But getting the telescope and the viewport/finder scope(/or whatever that small tubing is) in sync is not easy at all - even with the three mount screws, it was much difficult to set it up right!* The table-top tripod and its fine-tuning controls, though plastic, feels good like metal controls and they work fine too!* No comments about that 4mm lens or the advertised 300x or 400x magnification! Yet to use the 4mm lens as it doesn;t seem to gather enough light and focus on distant object wasn't easy. And I don't know what formula they used to arrive at the 400x magnification!I know, I was trying to point out the problems here, but like I said earlier, I'm new to this and I'm not sure what to expect for around 60$. I used the 20mm lens during the day 'bird-watching' and for sure I was happy with the results - much better than my binoculars!

Not very easy to use..

meh

It's really fiddly and light, tough to move in small increments, and dark.

Not the greatest. My binoculars are more powerful and easy to view. This looks bad ass when it's set up in the living room but really performance sucks.

very cheap flimsy design. spotting scope is unadjustable so useless. must remove spotting scope mount, and eyepieces to fit it into carrying case. one lense had come apart during shipping. difficult to reassemble...lots of trial and error. Will probably make my 9-year old grandson happy but $80?!?! Really????

I am by no means a meteorologist, but I don't think this is worth the money. Spend a bit more and buy something you know will be legit. You can feel the cheapness in the product material and it is very hard to stabilize directly where you're trying to point it. I could not even get a good look at the moon. THE MOON! I sent it right back. If I would have paid half of what I paid for this, MAYBE I would have kept it just as a decoration piece.

could never get it to work properly

I was very disappointed with the quality. I feel I should have paid $25.00 at most for this.

I don't remember the reviews being so low for this when I bought it. Save yourself some trouble. Do not buy it. I got it as a gift, and it was hard to put together, and once I saw it put together (gave it as a gift in the box), it looked cheap. The tripod is short and flimsy plastic, even the case is cheap looking and feeling..

Looks like it was used and repacked. One of the lense was unpacked and stickers on some parts looked worn. I'm not happy!

Cheap plastic kiddie telescope. I can't even get it to work. I was so excited to try it out with my kids but had a major let down. I tried several times but too late to return now! =(

Opened box and case for the telescope had large water spots all over it yet everything else was sealed in plastic, didn't bother to open any further and returned it.