Vivitar Telescope with Tripod

Ok, let me dispense with the obvious right off the bat. This is NOT a quality telescope. The optics aren't that good, the stand is flimsy, its hard to aim accurately. So why did I give it 4 stars? One word. Price. The $70 regular price for this is ridiculous. Its not worth anywhere close to that. But here's the thing, I saw this in the drugstore for $15 and bought it. I took it home and managed to aim it at the moon and for the first time I saw the craters of the moon and even the shadows the craters made. I brought my 4 year old outside and he looked at it with me. We both had a great time and for $15. This telescope was good enough to get a nice look at the moon and we had a ball doing it. For me, that was worth the low price right there. Forget the fancy pictures on the box. You aren't going to be seeing the rings of saturn, nebulae, galaxies etc. But it does give a pretty nice view of the moon. Maybe I'll take it out and see if I can see anything of Jupiter or Mars. I'm not especially hopeful, but hey, for $20, what do you want. If you are into astronomy, this isnt the telescope for you. But I just read a book that says anything under $300 is junk. So spending $100 on a telescope, probably wont get you much further than this one will for $20. For $20, its a good disposable toy.

The telescope is very hard to work for children under 13. I was hoping to be able to set it up for my nephew, but it was hard for several grown people to try to focus the thing. My nephew said that the moon looked bigger if he just stared at it instead of looking inside of this thing. You know what they say, children always say the truth.

I purchased this knowing I wanted a bottom of the line disposable product and I was not dissappointed. It is OK for the price as long as you immediately pitch the tripod into the nearest handy active valcano. You are much better off using your hands and a nearby tree or other support. Everything else works just fine for watching wildlife, but I would not expect it to do well for stargazing.

a pair of binoculars works better than this telescope. It's really hard to find the target and does not bring clearer picture than binoculars.

My 7 old son played with it two hours and has not touched for a few weeks. We'll see it can be used for birds watching.

I purchased one at Walgreen's for $12.75 on close out merely as a demonstration for others of what not to buy. Sure, it is much better than what Galileo made, himself, 400 years ago, but:
1) The product is advertised on the box by the magnification it yields. The manufacturer is betting that you do not know that "quality" is based on light gathering ability (the diameter of the front lens, for a refractor telescope, or the diameter of the rear mirror, in a Newtonian reflector) and NOT by the magnifications printed on the box.
2) The mount is totally flimsy. The constant wobbling prevents clear viewing. A good mount should be able to dampen the vibrations after focusing, for example, in about 2 seconds. This one took about 15 seconds or more. And never stopped even with a light breeze. A solid camera tripod would improve the setup 10-fold.
3) The lowest power eyepiece (12mm/50x) exceeds the performance ability of the telescope for nighttime viewing. A general rule is that the maximum useful magnification = 25 x the diameter (in inches) of the lens (or mirror). The 2" lens x 25 = 50.
4) The eyepieces are poor. Only the very center of them appears to come to focus, with the rest of the image being blurry. And that's with daytime viewing. I can only imaging the collimation flaws in the optics when looking at stars.
5) The eyepieces are inferior, obsolete 0.965" barrel diameter. Today's eyepieces are a universal 1.25" (and 2" diameter for highest quality ones).
6) The box shows color images of the Orion nebula and the Pleiades. Color can only be achieved through time-exposure photography with the telescope on an equatorial mount. With VERY few exceptions (such as a 12" Newtonian reflector), color will NEVER be visible through an eyepiece on any telescope. When color is perceived, it is only when viewing the brightest emission nebula, and then the effect is a slight green color effect.

If you are interested in a telescope, check out your local astronomy club for advice. Avoid any refractor less than 3" or any reflector less than 6 inches.