To move the telescope for side-to-side movement, the base swivels in place. The tube clamp connects to the base and tension between the tube and the base is adjusted via the altitude tension knob that allows up/down movement. The tube is held within a clamp that has a knob and allows the tube to rotate to find a comfortable position for your eye to reach the eyepiece. The StarBlast comes with a tabletop mount that is exactly like a typical Dobsonian tabletop mount. There is some coma present around the edges of the field of view that can be distracting, but it’s not excessive to the point that it would affect your viewing experience. It’s an aberration that produces blurriness and the inability to focus an image that is often a shortcoming of budget, short-tube Newtonians. To see a parabolic mirror in an affordable telescope of this size should be a very appreciated feature as it helps to correct for spherical aberration. The primary mirror has a parabolic shape. It holds collimation well largely since it’s a smaller and lighter mirror, so it’s unlikely to get knocked out of alignment often. What’s important about a Newtonian is if the mirrors are collimatable, and fortunately, both the primary and secondary mirrors in the StarBlast 4.5 are. Using mirrors also help with color fidelity as wavelengths do not split, so they tend to have better correction for chromatic aberration versus a refracting telescope. As a Newtonian, it has mirrors that uses light reflection to reach the eyepiece. The StarBlast, for as cheap as it is, is a well-built telescope.
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