More Information  · Supplied Accessories Price $95.00 List Price $125.00 Highest Useful Magnification 140x Visual Limiting Magnitude 11.7 Focal Length 700mm Focal Ratio f/10 Resolution 1.65 arc seconds Aperture 2.75" Net Weight 11 lbs. Warranty 1 year

Its 2.75" aperture has a light grasp 100 times that of the sharpest eye for nighttime and twilight use. At only 11 lbs., it’s lightweight enough for a youngster to take out and set up on their own, but is optically good enough to keep an observer happy for years. Combine that sharpness with its two eyepieces (a 25mm for 28x magnification and a 12mm for 58x), and you have the ability to see many, many celestial and terrestrial objects that are simply invisible to the unaided eye.

Once you have scanned your way through the solar system and the Milky Way, you can use the GreatStart 70AR-AZ2 to look at things closer to home. The altazimuth mount will let you easily track objects on the ground and allow you to get a sharply-detailed closer look at nature and your surroundings. The scope can even be used as a 700mm (14x) f/10 telephoto lens for terrestrial photography by adding a few simple optional accessories. The GreatStart 70AR-AZ2 is an economy-priced scope that can open new worlds for you, both on the ground and in the sky.

This Telescope’s Optical System . . .

• Refractor optical tube: 70mm (2.75”) aperture 700mm focal length f/10 focal ratio refractor. Crown and flint glass achromatic doublet optics, with antireflection optical coatings on all air-to-glass surfaces for high light transmission and bright, contrasty images. There are no plastic optical components. Some minor chromatic aberration (a faint halo of violet light around the Moon and planets) will be visible, as is the case with all achromatic refractors, but it is well controlled and unobjectionable for the vast majority of observers.

• 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 Super Plössl eyepieces: You get a medium high power 1.25” 12mm (75x) eyepiece and a lower power 1.25” 25mm (36x) eyepiece that has a 1.44° field of view (over three times the diameter of the full Moon). Both fully multicoated eyepieces are premium 4-element Super Plössl eyepieces, the same eyepieces often supplied as standard equipment on telescopes costing thousands of dollars. Sky-Watcher regularly sells the eyepieces for $47 each on their website and you get two of them ($94 total) in this $79 scope!

• 2x Barlow: Also standard is a 1.25” 2x Barlow lens that doubles the magnification of the supplied Super Plössl eyepieces. The Barlow also doubles the power of any other 1.25” eyepiece you might want to add to your GreatStart refractor. Sky-Watcher regularly sells this Barlow on their website for $27. If you bought the two eyepieces and the Barlow directly from Sky-Watcher, you’d pay $121 for them, $42 more than the price of the complete scope! That’s a deal that’s hard to believe, but it’s the real deal!.

• Star diagonal: A 1.25" first surface mirror 90° star diagonal is standard equipment. This allows you to look at objects overhead in the sky in comfort, without having to contort your body to see through the eyepiece. It will show you images that are reversed right for left (so that printing would be backwards), but that’s normal with an astronomical telescope and of little consequence with for terrestrial observing (whether a duck is facing left or right in the eyepiece, he’s still a duck)

• Finderscope: A non-magnifying red dot finder mounts beside the focuser. The battery-operated red dot finder seems to project a dot of red light on the sky exactly where your telescope is pointed. The red dot helps you center celestial objects in the telescope so you don’t have to search for them using the narrow eyepiece field of view. Collimating knobs on the finder let you line up its red dot precisely with the main telescope optics to make centering distant objects easy and painless.

• Supplied software: This GreatStart includes a comprehensive “Planetarium Software for the PC” CD-ROM, a computerized sky map for your PC that lets you explore the heavens on your computer.

This Telescope’s Mount . . .

• Altazimuth mount: The sturdy all-metal AZ2 altazimuth mount is designed for both astronomical and terrestrial observing. There is a slow motion control knob for altitude (up/down) control. The azimuth (left/right) scope motion is controlled by simply pushing the scope. A hand-tighten knob lets you adjust the amount of friction in azimuth to keep the left/right motion smooth.

• Tripod: The stable tripod has aluminum legs that easily adjust in length to put the eyepiece at the most comfortable height for virtually any observer, young or old. The tripod includes an accessory shelf to hold your eyepieces. A lip on the shelf keeps accessories from falling off during use.

Free shipping, two quality Super Plössl eyepieces, a 2x Barlow lens, a planetarium program software CD-ROM for your computer, an illuminated red dot finder, an image-erecting star diagonal for terrestrial use – all for less than the price of the two eyepieces bought separately. That makes this GreatStart 70 a great buy for the backyard astronomer or nature lover.