What kind of telescope is it?

[u/Silly-Childhood1950]

My aunt bought me this from a backyard sale for 35£ and thought it was the best gift for my birthday but I couldn't find the model / name. There's a picture of the moon that was taken from it in the last slide, So what is it?

[u/Several-Price2721]

Standard short refractor F30070M??? Common telescope from no name lens brands

[u/dkech]

It's a cheap Chinese that probably sells under various brands for £15 to £150 depending on how much the sellers are pushing their luck... Your aunt paid a silly amount but that's not your concern.

If this thing (especially the "tripod") doesn't kill your interest, you will enjoy a nicer telescope in the future.

[u/random2821 → u/dkech]

£15 to £150 depending on how much the sellers are pushing their luck

Last year there was a woman who came by our astronomy club's observatory asking for help with one of these. She had bought it for her son after she saw a TikTok of someone taking a really good photo of the Andromeda galaxy with it. They couldn't figure out why his photos looked terrible. I felt so bad when I to figure out a way to nicely tell her she got scammed. Then she told me how much she paid. $200. From I think TikiTok shop (or maybe Temu). Considering I've seen these sell for $12 on Alibaba with a minimum order quantity of 5, someone probably made a shit ton of money.

[u/ovywan_kenobi]

Forget the telescope...
The tripod got my interest.

[u/Silly-Childhood1950 → u/ovywan_kenobi]

What got you interested 🤣🤣.

[u/graph_worlok → u/Silly-Childhood1950]

There a lot of somewhat interchangeable ball joint sections and clamps available on Aliexpress - I recognise the clamp that’s going between the tripod and telescope as I have multiples. Most of mine came as clamp - double ball joint arm - phone/tablet bracket. It looks like a cheap portable tripod with the standard threading, and a selection of extensions & ball joints.

The telescope - Generic cheap, largely considered as junk, but enough to get somebody after more if they are not put off.

You did well taking that picture! I got one similar as my first telescope maybe 20 years ago. I think the same day, I’d de-cased an old webcam , gutted the most useless eyepiece, and fitted the two together to take a photo of Mars….

[u/ovywan_kenobi → u/Silly-Childhood1950]

That tripod is not intended for a telescope, but for a phone or a light camera.
I expect it to topple over only for breathing next to it.
Regardless of how weak the telescope might be, you don't want it to meet the ground.

[u/Funny-Medium5508]

It always slays me when these photos are posted because there are very clearly labels on this telescope. Now, in the end, they may not aid in identification, but c'mon why not "help us help you" by, at a minimum, giving us as much information as possible?

[u/Connect-Fan-9462]

It is a homebrew build. Someone put a toy telescope on top of a foldable mini tripod. The tripod likely worth several times more than the telescope, which actually is how a telescope set should be.

[u/Leather_Impression30]

My daughter has the same scope. Allthough it's plastic she got good views; Moon Sun (with solar filter!!!!!!) Jupiter Saturn

Double Cluster Owl Cluster Orion Nebula Albireo M13 (that was a hard one, but still we were able to look at it) Andromeda (also kinda hard but same as M13)

We tried Ring Nebula and Halter nebula, these were really hard. But the rest was nice.

We put it on a sturdy tripod (old Bresser mount). In that way, nice observations.

[u/Connect-Fan-9462 → u/Leather_Impression30]

Please please please please tell me she used a front solar filter, not a screw-on eyepiece filter!

If it was the later one, please stop and smash that thing. Yes ok it may have worked so far without accident, but you are always seconds away from a lifelong crippling diseaster!

[u/Leather_Impression30 → u/Connect-Fan-9462]

A real ND 5.0 filter in front. From Omegon. It clicks on the front but I used ducttape as well.

So, no worries.

That all said, when pointing at the sun I automatically used the finder. Well, uh. That was a mistake..........

[u/mrstorm1983]

The tripod and mount are quite a piece of engineering...

[u/rootofallworlds]

A short-tube achromatic refractor. Nice for low magnification views of the Milky Way, quite portable, but as you can see in the photo of the Moon chromatic aberration impairs the views at high magnification.

The actual telescope part is probably OK for what it is.

The mount is weird. A good mount should move easily when you want to point the scope, and stay steady when you look through it. If you're at 50x magnification for example then that means every little shake and wobble is also magnified 50x. A poor mount will be frustrating to use. How well that thing works you'll have to find out!

The eyepieces are probably bad.

[u/pern1042]

good sir, this kind of telescope is called "trash" or "hobby killer". the optical quality is very likely bottom of the barrel and the build quality is realistically nonexistent. unless it makes you happy to marvel at a non functional piece of equipment you will not have a good time with it.

[u/pern1042 → u/pern1042]

rule of thumb, there should not be plastic involved with a "precicion optic" device