National Geographic 70mm Spotting Scope With Tripod

If you are shopping for a beginner’s telescope, the name that will keep cropping up is the National Geographic 70mm Spotting Scope with tripod.

This is a popular refractor telescope for beginners sold under the generally reliable National Geographic brand through high street stores like Argos and Homebase for about £100.

This is a very basic telescope only suitable for an absolute beginner that gives limited views of the moon and planets.

With a 70mm mirror and magnification of x140, the National Geographic comes at the bottom end of the scale for viewing interesting objects in the night sky.

With manual focus and weighing in at 2Kg, this is a lightweight scope with a tabletop mount. The stripped down weight comes from many of the parts being moulded from plastic instead of metal.

If you are buying a first telescope for a budding astronomer, then be careful that the lack of visibility of distant objects this scope gives doesn’t put the junior stargazer off their hobby.

If the telescope is an introduction or taster for a youngster who you would feel safe handing a cheaper telescope to see if they are interested in astronomy, then this basic model is probably OK.

The detail is in the name really – it’s a spotting scope to line up a larger observing telescope rather than an observing scope itself.

The National Geographic is also woefully unsuitable for astrophotography as them kit comes without a counterbalancing weight.

For more serious astronomers, read our product reviews of Celestron, Meade or Skywatcher brands for refractor telescopes with similar mirror specification that far outperform what is really a toy from National Geographic.

It seems a shame that such a recognisable brand as National Geographic has lent its name to a product that really is not good value for the price – but in the end, telescopes are the same as everything else and you get what you pay for.

The technical specs are:

* Magnification 15 to 225x.
* Optimum magnification 75x.
* Lens diameter 70mm.
* Manual focus.
* Can be used for land and sky.
* Size (H) 121cm, (W) 78cm, (D) 78cm.
* Limited lifetime guarantee.