The Bushnell Northstar 127 is a good first telescope for an individual or family. Many scopes at the low end of the price range, known as first time scopes, are poorly designed, cheaply manufactured and have poor optics. The Northstar 127 does not suffer from any of these pitfalls.

The Maksutov-Cassegrain design uses a folded light path that reflects off two mirrors before being passed to the eyepiece. This reduces the length of the tube that's needed, resulting in an easily portable scope. The mounting system that Bushnell uses, referred to as Kinematic, is actually a one-arm version of an alt/azimuth mount that is motor controlled to allow full star tracking and computerized go-to capabilities. One-arm mounts are known for having some shake, especially when the mount is being moved by motors for star tracking, but we didn't notice any shaking with this scope, and its tracking was quite good.

One of the big attractions of this type of scope is its computerized control, which allows you to select an object from an included catalog and have the telescope automatically swing around to put the object in view and then track its movement. The Northstar 127 has a large catalog of stellar items, including planetary objects, stars, deep space objects, nebulas and galaxies. In order for the go-to functions to work, the telescope must be aligned each time it is taken out for use. The Northstar's alignment procedure requires centering two stars within the scope's eyepiece. Once the stars are centered, the computer system will rate the alignment, with five stars as the target rating. If your alignment racked up fewer than five stars, you can choose two different stars to align.

The optics are quite good for this price range, although we found that the 4mm eyepiece produces too much magnification, resulting in muddied views. The 25mm eyepiece is good for general use, but you may want to add a wider-view eyepiece later.

The Bushnell Northstar 127 Maksutov-Cassegrain offers a number of attractive features, as well as a budget-friendly price, making it a good choice for a first telescope.


Pros: Easy-to-use go-to computer-controlled scope; good optics for this price range; the ability to add eyepieces and change finder scopes will keep your investment productive for a long time
Cons: 4mm eyepiece produces too strong a magnification

Warranty
lifetime, limited