Product Details

Bushnell NorthStar Reviews

A useful product, but priced a bit high
by TinCan Frank from Sunny SoCal, 2009-08-26

I own one of these, it is a very usable product, although the high price at retail makes it an item best purchased second hand or at closeout.

It is a classic Newtonian reflector (Newt) telescope, but has a spherical mirror instead of parabolic. Since the focal length is relatively high, the views are still good. I owned three such larger Newts before this one, and had no success in completing one of the basic tests in Amateur Astronomy, that of splitting both pairs of Epsilon Lyrae, the fabled Double Double.

This telescope did it, and the view was crisp and clean. I did not need to collimate it, but I did use a better eyepiece, a 10mm Plossl purchased on the popular auction site.

The computerized object locating system is limited, as other reviews have pointed out, but the manual button controls work, so once the object is located it is not hard to keep it in view.

I live in a light polluted area, so I can only see the brighter objects. I often set this up beside a larger scope like an 8 inch Dobsonian, and use this to point to the area of an unfamiliar object, since the skies are murky here and star-hopping is difficult. I find that the drive is much more accurate than similar inexpensive Meade telescopes. I use a 9 volt adapter instead of batteries to keep costs down, but the battery supply is convenient for use when travelling.

If you can find one inexpensively, it can be a handy item for quick views or in conjunction with a larger manually pointed scope.

Terrible instuctions!
by ACE from New York, 2008-10-03

Two college graduates could not understand the terrible instuctions for assemby. Th box lies when it says 2 easy assembly steps.We still haven't got it together so we can't comment on the telescpoe itself.

Everything bad you've read it true...
by A. Murray from NC, 2006-10-04

Everything bad you've read in the other reviews is all 100% true. From the lack of tracking, poor go-to (because it doesn't keep the time after you've set it), to the way over exaggerated magnification claims, shaky mount-- all true.

I've had one of these scopes for about 4-5 years (got it as a gift). I used it once or twice but couldn't do anything but look at the moon with it. It went in the attic (where most cheap scopes end up) after a short time...

Then I gave it to my sister (she kept it when I moved-- I was going to throw it away). She gave it back after about a year because she couldn't get it to focus. Only useful for the moon she says (couldn't get the computer to work at all-- her fault there-- read on).

Since that time, however, I learned a lot about telescopes in general. So when I got it back, I figured out why it wouldn't focus with the included 4mm eyepiece or the supplied 3x barlow. It was WAY out of collimation. Collimation wasn't even mentioned in the manual at all. They assume it is always in collimation. If a scope gets out of collimation it is useless so it is strange not to put it in the manual at all.

So I take out the primary mirror and mark the center spot with a red sharpie (you need to mark the center of the primary mirror for collimation-- this one doesn't come pre-marked). I put it back in and use a cheshire eyepiece (used for collimation) to line up the optics. Now I knew why there were no instructions on collimating. This thing is almost impossible to collimate! The secondary mirror basically falls out when you loosen any ONE of the set screws! Anyway after about an hour and fifteen minutes I got it in very good collimation.

However, even in good collimation, the 4mm eyepiece will not come into a sharp focus and NOTHING in the 3x barlow will come to focus AT ALL. This is definitely due to very, very poor quality of the supplied eyepieces. I've tried other eyepieces which make this scope perform much better so I know it is the eyepieces. The 3x barlow is 100% useless and it is also 100% plastic (I think it even has a plastic lens). The *only* reason the barlow is in the box is so they can advertise 525x magnification (700mm/4mm * 3 for the barlow = 525x). But the useful magnification for any scope maxes out around 60x the aperture (in inches). In this scope's case that is 180x.

The computer works like it is supposed to (except it doesn't keep the time once you enter it which makes it pretty useless). The problem with the computer and "go-to" in general is the user has to know a bit about the sky before it is useful because you have to line up the scope manually on two stars to set the computer. The novice probably can't do this properly. Note, too, that the second star must be found fairly quickly after the first or the settings won't be very accurate (hard, again, for the novice). The most useful part of the computer is using the direction arrows to manually keep an object in view since they slew the scope at a fairly slow rate.

So, the user should know a bit about the night sky before attempting to ever use ANY go-to system.

First of all, the best way to do that is to buy NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe (Spiralbound) by Terence Dickinson. That'll get you oriented in the night sky and give a good starting point.

Second, pick up a good starter scope. A good starter Newtonian (same style as this scope) with an object locator (doesn't automatically move the telescope, though) is an Orion SkyQuest XT6. It has twice the aperture of this scope. If you get the XT6 without the intelliscope option it is even cheaper. General rule is buy the bigest aperture scope that your budget allows.

Personally, I don't think you need a go-to at first. It is much more fun to be able to read start charts and star hop your way to find those deep sky objects. Very much like the difference between watching a movie vs. reading the book.

Simple way to filter out junk telescopes from the decision process....
by Zhimbo from New York City, 2006-06-09

A useful rule of thumb for determining maximum useable magnfication for a telescope is 50x per inch (or about 2x per millimeter).

A 3inch scope is useable to about 150x, or maybe a little more with a very good scope.

This scope is advertised as giving up to 525x.

Any scope which is advertised as giving such overinflated magnification claims is safely classified as "junk".

Don't buy scopes based on magnification claims.

Different model, same problems
by Jon from Ohio, 2004-10-18

First off, I just want to say that I have the model up from this scope (with the 4 inch mirror), and I have the exact same problems as with this model.
To begin, the optics are actually fairly good, but nowhere close to what bushnell says they are. My scope claims to have a magnification of 675x, but it maxes out at a more reasonable 225x. While this is a good magnification, producing clear images, it is almost rendered useless by the fact that the telescope couldn't track an object if its life depended on it. I was able to see Jupiter, its gas belts, and four of its moons, but within about 30 seconds, it completely drifted out of the eyepiece. Optics wise, this is a good scope that allowed me to see the moon, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, though only for short periods of time before I needed to re-align the scope. And just as a general warning, no matter how high the magnification is, the planet will always be about the sixe of the head of a pin. If you let your eyes focus you can begin to see details.
My main prolem with this scope is the tripod. Every one of the claims that this scope can track is not true. It says it uses some kind of revolutionary new kinematic mount that is incredibly precise. This is not true. All this scope uses is a wobbly alt-azimuth mount that is anything but capeable of tracking. It is very shaky, making it hard to focus at high magnifications.
The computer system on this scope is a total joke. It does not track mainly due to the fact that it doesn't keep time. You enter in the time when you go outside, so that the computer can then in theory point the scope to where objects are in the sky. This would work incredibly well...if it kept up with the time. The clock on the computer never changes, so if you enter in 10:25 when you go outside and check an hour later, it will still read 10:25. The location of objects does work in the sense that it can find any object at that given moment in time, but once a minute has gone by it is rendered completely useless. Seeing as how this is the main selling point for the scope, this is not a good thing.
The only other pro to go along with the optics is the finder scope. The red dot finder scope is excellent, and if for some reason you buy this scope, you sould learn to use it. It is easy to align, and is prety accurate. I only saw the things I did because I was able to use this little attachment.
Overall, you shouldn't buy this scope. The optics and finderscope don't match up to the other shortcomings. The only saving grace for me was that I got it at a reduced price. I would recommend looking at a scope in the Meade ETX series, mainly because they now have an attatchment on the mounts that makes them a simple equatorial mount, making it able to track. From the reviews I've read form that series and brand, it sounds like it may actually work.