Magnification a liitle too high?

[Zachariah]

Just looking through the new Argos catalogue and they have for sale a reflector telescope with highest magnification of 750x. Should I buy it? (joking of course!) its a celestron 127.

[MjrTom]

Mmm lucky if you make it much past 250x

[nightfisher]

150x would be more realistic!

can they be done for false advertising?

[sabana]

Wait till next months 1000x model comes out.

[c87]

I would say it's a misprint, but the website says the same. Just had a look at the celestron website and they are saying 300x is the maximum magnification.

[E621Keith]

can they be done for false advertising?

Technically those scope 'can' do the magnification they advertised. They come with the necessary eyepiece and barlow to give those magnification. Since they didn't make any claim about the image quality, it's not false advertising.

It's a bit like those cheap 10-20 megapixel compacts cameras a few years ago. They advertised their extremely high MP count, and they do produce images at those resolution, but the image quality is worse than a 0.6MP webcam because it is noise, totally washed out and lack any details. It's the consumer's fault to equate MP count to image quality, just like equating telescope magnification to image quality.

[Frank the Troll]

Ermm Argos

check out a proper scope shop first, you wont get advice from argos, just a ticket to que

[Capricorn]

WHAT???

Only 6x the scope dia in mm, not worth having.:D

If they cannot guarantee at least the same magnification as the focal length at least then it is the cheaper Tasco for me.

[Ags]

My local department store was offering a small achro with 666x magnification. I can only assume they were channeling demonic forces :-)

[Damo636]

If its the Celestron Powerseeker 127 i would suggest avoiding it like the plague. I used to own one and its an absolute pig to collimate. It uses a barlow element in the focuser to achieve the 1000mm fl.

[E621Keith]

If they cannot guarantee at least the same magnification as the focal length at least then it is the cheaper Tasco for me.

Before Celestron was sold to Synta, it was owned by Tasco. They seems to have inherited the department store scope business when Tasco went bust. Rest assure, if you buy a Celestron Power seeker or Astromaster, you are buying a Tasco.