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The lightweight and easily stored and transported scope has an equatorial mount with a convenient battery-operated motor drive that makes it easy to keep high power views of the Moon and planets centered in the eyepiece for extended no-hands viewing sessions. A wide variety of optional accessories is available to extend the scope’s capabilities in several interesting directions – daytime solar observing, astrophotography, and more.

The 4.5” Konus reflector is a good choice for the beginning astronomer who wants to see and do a little bit of everything in the sky.

This Telescope’s Optical System . . .

• Reflector optical tube: 114mm (4.5”) aperture 900mm focal length Newtonian reflector with all-glass mirrors. Each mirror is coated with highly reflective aluminum and overcoated with quartz for long life. No plastic mirrors. Aluminum tube with protective tube end rings. The f/8 focal ratio can provide both low power wide angle views and high power closeups. The reflector design of the scope is totally free of the purple haze of spurious color visible around the Moon and planets in lesser refractor scopes. Images are sharp and clear. You can even collimate (align) the mirrors for the sharpest images. This will have to be done only rarely, thanks to the special design of the cell holding the lightweight mirror.

• Rack and pinion focuser: The 1.25” focuser has dual focusing knobs for precise image control with either hand. The large focus knobs are easy to operate, even while wearing gloves or mittens in cold weather.

• Two eyepieces: You get two good quality low to medium power 1.25” eyepieces – a 10mm (90x) and a 17mm (53x) with a field of view that’s almost twice the diameter of the full Moon. Both eyepieces are a higher quality four-element Plössl optical design than you find in most other telescopes in this size and price range. They have antireflection multicoatings on their lens surfaces for sharp images and very good contrast. Instead of providing low quality eyepieces that give unrealistically high (and often unusable) magnifications, Konus provides higher quality eyepieces with powers you can use and enjoy every night you take your 4.5” Konus out to observe the faint fuzzies outside our solar system. Optional eyepieces are available to let you increase your magnification range significantly for closeup lunar, planetary, and globular star cluster observing.

• Finderscope: The supplied battery-operated non-magnifying red dot finder seems to project a dot of red light on the sky exactly where the scope is pointed at all times. It makes initial scope alignment and object centering easy and painless.

• Moon filter: You get a 1.25” optical glass Moon filter that threads into the base of the eyepieces. It cuts the glare of the brightly-lighted Moon and improves the contrast so it is easier for you to see faint details that might otherwise be washed out by the brightness of the lunar surface.

This Telescope’s Mount . . .

• Equatorial mount: The sturdy equatorial mount is designed for astronomical observing. By aligning the mount on the north celestial pole, the supplied motor drive can automatically follow the motion of the planets and stars as they travel east to west across the sky. A counterweight on the opposite side of the mount from the telescope balances the weight of the optical tube and makes it easy to move the scope effortlessly from one part of the sky to another.

• Motor drive: The supplied single axis battery-operated right ascension motor drive has a variable speed control to match the slightly different speeds at which the Moon, planets, Sun, and stars move across the sky. This keeps objects from drifting out of the field during long observing sessions, or while several people in a row observe the same object. The drive runs up to 40 hours from one 9-volt transistor radio battery.

• Setting circles: Setting circles (graduated scales marked in either hours and minutes or degrees) are provided in both right ascension (the east/west position of objects in the sky measured in hours and minutes) and declination (the north/south position measured in degrees). These allow you to align the scope on the approximate position of an object in the sky by using its r. a. and dec coordinates from a star chart – before you search for it in the finderscope and eyepiece. Setting circles can reduce the time it takes for you to find the fainter and more difficult deep space objects.

• Manual slow motion controls: There are two slow motion control knobs connected to the mount by long flexible cables so they are easy to reach while observing. One controls the scope’s motion in declination (the north/south direction in the sky). Turning this knob enables you to correct for any north/south drift a celestial object may take as it drifts across the sky, due to an improper alignment of the scope on the north celestial pole when you first set it up. The second controls the scope’s motion in right ascension (the east/west direction in the sky). Turning this knob enables you to follow manually the motion of celestial objects as they travel from east to west across the sky, should the battery in your motor drive die when you’re out observing.

• Tripod: The aluminum tripod easily adjusts from 2.4’ tall to 4’ to accommodate a variety of observer heights. The tripod includes an accessory shelf that holds your eyepieces and accessories.