Star Gazing on the Park

A Detailed Look at the Galileo Visions FS-135DX & FS-102DX

During my running around (literally) between displays at CES 2004, we happened upon something that immediately captured my attention. Tucked in the corner of the Central Hall, was a fairly good size display of Telescopes and other assorted, space related goodies. Among all my other hobbies (guitar, homebrew, cooking, swamp biking), I have been a novice astronomer since 6-months before Comet Shoomaker-Levy 9 rammed into Jupiter way back in 1994. When I head about the news of this Comet's demise, I wanted nothing more than to have my very own telescope. But I had just graduated Engineering School , just got married, just purchased our first house, and had my first job as a Mechanical Engineer at a small Laser Company. So my budget would not allow anything that would do justice to viewing this once in a life time event. The Vice-President of the Laser Company I worked for suggested that I design and build my own telescope. Being a Physicist himself, he began a long tale on how he ground and silver plated his own mirror, and then designed and machined his own telescope. Given my budget, I felt as though I had little choice especially when considering that at the time the larger telescope companies such as Mead and Orion Telescopes (now Celestron), were only offering cardboard tubes and short focal length mirrors, especially on their Dobsonian Mount Scopes. So I asked my employer if he would help me with my design and efforts. He agreed and I then started my 6-month adventure in designing and building my own telescope.

But had there been an affordable solution, which encompassed a reasonable aperture (6" or larger), a more than reasonable focal length (equal to or larger than f8), and a metal tube I might have thought differently about before setting off on this adventure.

Since my experience in 1994, there have been several key advancements in telescopes, including the affordable CCD camera, metal tubes, computerized controls with polar alignment, and much more, all of which was once unheard of to the common working man. In addition to these wonderful advancements, the competition seems to have grown as more small companies are appearing with reasonable and affordable telescopes. One such company includes Galileo Telescopes located in always sunny and warm (except during hurricane season) Miami , Florida .

Imagine my surprise when as we were dodging between meetings at CES 2004, we came across a booth for Telescopes. So I stopped and began to examine these scopes. What captured my attention rather quickly was their build quality. The robust tripod, metal mirror mounts for primary and secondary, metal tubing, CIR spotter, and all metal 2" eyepiece focuser. I quickly prejudged the price to be well over $400 for such a well built scope. When President Michael Wittmeyer approached me, we engaged in a detailed discussion about their scopes. Michael told me more about the scopes which included the 135mm (5.3") diameter mirror with an astonishing f8 focal length, the adjustability of the secondary and primary mirrors for alignment and bore-sight, and the black dot centrally located on the primary for critical alignment. These were all features I have not heard before in an affordable scope and some, including the easy adjustability of the secondary mirror, which as near impossible for me to include in my home-made scope.

The other things we discussed included the sturdy metal tube which made up the central scope, the cast metal mounting adapter which held the tube, and the metal tripod mount which supported the entire scope. I quickly pondered as to how much a scope of this caliber would cost. So I asked the big question to Michael. I was amazed when he informed me that the FS-135DX sells for just under $300. It actually took me a moment to gather my thoughts before I asked him to repeat what he had just said. He confirmed with the same price, a 5.3" aperture, metal tubing, metal adjustable mirror mounts, metal tripod, 2" metal gear driven eyepiece focuser with a 1.25" adapter, one 1.25" 25mm eyepice a variable-zoom 6.8mm to 18mm eyepiece, one 2" diameter eyepiece (with the FS-135DX), CIR electronic finder (with the FS-135DX), 3x Barlow, dust-caps for both ends, and what seemed to be great optics quality (primary and secondary), was only $290. "Insane!," I insisted. "How can that possibly be?" Michael was quick to point out that many of the mass produced scope companies are shaking in their shoes over his stunning price in this market. I quickly replied with, "We need to talk." So without further delay, I bring you our review of the Galileo Vision Telescopes.

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