Meade NG-70 70mm Refractor Telescope

This is my first telescope, so my review will only state my opinion on the quality of the telescope and comparing it’s magnification to binoculars and sight scopes. Firstly, I am very happy with the quality of this telescope. In fact, I love this telescope. If you are looking for an entry level refractor, this is the one. The telescope tube, tripod and eyepieces are metal, everything else is plastic. The setup is easy as are using the slow motion controls and adjusting the view finder. This telescope magnifies 28x (25mm eyepiece included) to almost 80x (9mm eyepiece included) in comparison to some binocs and sight scopes that only magnify 7 to 20 times. This is excellent for viewing the moon, but if you want to view the Galilean planets, you will definitely want to purchase a 1.25” Barlow lens. A Barlow lens will double the magnification of your eye pieces. Even with the strongest of the two included eyepieces (9 mm which gives 77.77x magnification) the planets are still tiny (trust me, I have 20/20 vision). There are inexpensive Barlow lenses on ebay, so pick one up if you are buying this excellent entry level refractor telescope.