It may be sad, but it's great fun spotting CTS (Christmas Trash Scope) evidence in telescopes. I've now turned my eye on my own CTS that I've had for a couple of years.

Tasco Galaxsee 375X

• As you can see, it's a Tasco telescope.
• It's advertised in terms of magnification.
• It's 4½'' which means that its maximum practical magnification is only 225X.
• It came with, surprise, H20mm and SR4mm eyepieces, but at least they're 1.25''.
• It's mounted on an EQ-1 mount, when according to BAG, anything below an EQ-3 is too flimsy for a 4½''. So it's two levels too light.
• It came with an all plastic 3X Barlow lens.
• The finder is all plastic and stopped down, probably a 5X24 stopped down to 10mm as mentioned in BAG.

BAG?

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

The Backyard Astronomer's Guide.

Another thing I've just thought of: the focal length is 500mm, which makes the focal ratio f4.3, far too fast to be of any decent quality.

A lot of telescopes are supplied with EQ-1 mounts, CTS or not. I'd suggest that, unless you're planning to do astrophotography, buy a good alt-az mount instead. They're cheaper and lighter.

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I like crinoids.

I've seen a 60mm (2.5 inch) telescope advertrised with 540x magnification!

skyglow1