Vivitar 50×100 Telescope: Review

I had no clue what to buy my boyfriend this year for Christmas. We both decided to go cheap seeing how we have to save up every cent we have for out upcoming first home purchase.

I figured I’d still spend a few bucks on him, but some bucks, not a load of bucks. While browsing for Christmas last minute pick ups I found myself in Rite Aid. I was scooping up boxes of candy, stupid holiday gift baskets... and oh would you look at that. A telescope caught my eye on the bottom shelf. It had a $79.99 suggest retail price, and oh… would you look at that, it’s sale price is blow out, at only $19.99.

I looked at the box, and the images that the telescope is supposed to show looked sweet. A photo of the moon blown up so large that I could see crates. Stars so large they looked like the sun. Oh yes, this was the cool hot ticket item, and it’s only $19.99.

Now I don’t know much about telescopes, or what is good, or bad, but the box art told me a good story. It told me I’d see things like never before, and the pictures they added seemed to pass my test of crap or not. I thought it was a good buy, especially for the price.

The Vivitar 50×100 Telescope came home with me, got wrapped up and passed on to my lover on Christmas morning.

He seemed happy with it. It came with 2 attachable lenses to view things in different sizes, and it came with a tripod.

By night he was excited to give it a try, and I was amazed at how easy the telescope was when it came to setting it up on the tripod. It was also very lightweight, so he was able to easily tote it along if he wanted to.

We set it up in our driveway and aimed at the moon. It took quite some time to actually find the moon on the telescope, but about 10 minutes later he had it.

“Wow!” was his reply. Of course I was giddy to see what he was seeing. I was imagining the moons huge craters, like the box photos had shown.

I waited my turn and took a peek. Wow indeed. It surely was a spectacular site, the moon was being show to me in ways I had never seen it before. It looked like a ball of rotting swiss cheese. I was pretty impressed, but sadly the moon looked nothing like the one on the box.

Don’t get me wrong for $19.99 we were seeing the moon in a way we had never seen it before, and it was very much appreciated. The box exaggerated a bit, but still I was impressed, and delighted to see the moon blown up the way it was. I saw bumps and crates, and at that moment I said to him, ‘we need a better telescope.’

So yeah, the Vivitar 50×100 is an awesome telescope for those who have never used one before, and it is a great price for those who don’t want to splurge on big time expensive telescopes.

Finding stars was near impossible, but truly its a good telescope for looking at the moon.

Overall:

A good buy, for a great price.

Recommended:

Definitely. You will see the moon (and inside your neighbors windows) like never before.

Where To Buy:

The price of the Vivitar 50×100 remains the same on many online sites. You can find it on Ebay for even less. Rite Aid sells the telescope as well if you don’t feel like waiting for your telescope to come in the mail.