This review, “Orion’s IntelliScope XT10,” appeared in the January 2005 issue of Astronomy magazine.
I’m often asked, “What’s the best telescope I can buy on a limited budget?” Usually, I recommend a Dobsonian-mounted scope. Such an instrument gives you the greatest aperture for your money without sacrificing portability. It achieves its favorable cost-to-aperture ratio by placing a high-quality Newtonian reflector tube assembly on a simple, alt-azimuth mount that’s quick to set up, stable even when you choose high magnifications, and intuitive for the novice to use.
California-based Orion Telescopes & Binoculars is a company that has considerable manufacturing and sales experience with this type of instrument. Orion has a reputation for refining its products to satisfy the requirements of observers, so when advertisements appeared in 2003 for the IntelliScope — a radically redesigned version of Orion’s venerable SkyQuest XT series of Dobsonians — I knew the company had done its homework.
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