I took this up to the mountains camping. As my first telescope, this was a blast to use. It is powerful enough to view Saturn and its rings, along with Jupiter and five moons at the time I was looking. It provides a fantastic view of the moon as well. Well worth the money.

I love this telescope. This is my first real telescope, but I have had several smaller ones. You can easily see the moon very close up and with the higher magnification lenses you can see planets such as Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It is difficult to see the planets any bigger than shown in the pictures unless it is a very clear night with no moisture in the air. However, you can easily see the rings around Saturn and Jupiter's red spot on a clear night if you get the focus just right.

This is my first telescope. But I had put in a lot of time to learn about telescopes before I made a choice for a beginner’s telescope. I had my doubts about this scope when I first used it.The scope came with the cap for the secondary mirror (which had adhesive to keep it in place) stuck to the primary mirror. When I pulled it off it left a smudge of adhesive on the mirror. I had also bought a laser collimator with the scope only to find that this is a Bird Jones style scope requiring partial disassembly to use a laser collimator. Also, the primary mirror is not center dotted. This all seemed like more potential work that I really wanted to take on as a novice.I called Celestron to ask if the primary mirror smudge was an issue, they said it was not. I also asked why the primary mirror is not center dotted for collimation and they said the scope was collimated at the factory and would not need collimation by the consumer. The Celestron rep was helpful and patient with my questions, so no problem there.I was under-whelmed with my first two viewings. The only easy target at the time was Jupiter. It was rather fuzzy and undefined. And so I undertook to disassemble the scope to center dot the primary mirror and laser collimate it. It definitely needed collimation. The secondary mirror was way off. And of course the primary mirror was off too as expected after I disassembled it. To my relief, all of this was pretty easy to do. I had the whole project done in about 30 minutes.And that did the trick. Jupiter resolved nice and sharp. I could see the cloud bands and the four moons were sparkling jewels. Better yet, Saturn was now up. What an awesome sight! Beyond my expectations. I could see the rings clearly to the degree that I could tell how they oriented around the plant (with a 12.5mm eyepiece and a 2x Barlow). I couldn’t make out the Cassini Division, but I was very impressed with the detail and clarity provided by this beginner’s scope.So now, for the money, I’m very pleased with this scope. But those contemplating purchase should know that this is a Bird Jones style scope and it may need collimation to get the most out of it.One last note: the eyepieces supplied are not very impressive, but useable. I bought a set of Plossl eyepieces (20mm, 12.5mm, 6mm) and a 2x Barlow under the assumption they will still be of good use if I upgrade to a better telescope in the future. I think that was a good supporting purchase.

Was as expected, is my first telescope and is work great! The moon look great, i could appreciate Jupiter and it moons.

My granddaughter and I have been checking out the stars and the planets. We had a little trouble trying to figure it out at first because we were going to fast when we were trying to focus and we shot right past it. After we had a friend show us to slow down, we were able to see it and haven't stopped looking at the stars since. A great way to bond with the younger generation!!

Real easy to set up and learn how to use it

Find a model that you can buy a replacement starfinder because sooner or later your going to need one. The starfinder didn't work right out of the box. Tested the battery and it was good. Poor instructions on how to get to the battery and how to turn on and off the view finder, had to find a youtube video. I would like buy another one but, cannot find a replacement so I must return telescope or pay to have one shipped back and forth from the factory. A warranty replacement would cost more in shipping than the part is worth with no guarantee that I just won't get another bad one and have to pay to have it replaced.

I bought it for my son. But I love it and find a new hobby for myself!

Mon petit fils de 9 ans a réussi à le monté !!Je ne cache pas que nous sommes resté à coté de lui, et lui avons donner les recommandations pour ne pas toucher l'intérieur ou les lentilles des objectifs.

I am using it for almost one month. Thing I like about this telescope are1. Good stable mount - I preferred to use AZ mount as it is easier to use. It has slow motion adjuster which is some time difficult to operate but it is useful to track object when using high magnification. Mount is light weight and very easy to carry. Assembly of scope with mount is just two step and can be done within a minute.2. Overall very compact size - I wanted a telescope which could give magnification in 150 - 250x range so I went for this telescope. Its focal length is 1000mm and primary mirror is 114mm, telescope tube itself is short around 600mm. This is not a true Newtonian reflector but a Bird Jones version, which has spherical corrector lens in focus tube to correct for spherical abbreviation and increase focal length. Overall weight of the telescope is 3-4Kg and its very easy to move and carry this with you.3. Performance - Since it is a bird jones design it has some slight disadvantage over true Newtonian reflector telescope like overall FOV would be less then same aperture size Newtonian scope. Corrector lens would slightly reduce the brightness. But higher magnification and compact size overcome these disadvantages. My experience is below 150x magnification image quality is good and it is easier to focus the image but should have good quality eyepiece. Above 150X magnification resolution of focus knob is not sufficient to accurately focus the image, you have to give several trials to fine focus the image. From my experience till around 210-220x magnification only you get fine sharp image. Cluster and nebula views are good with this scope. I have seen just seen Venus and Jupiter planets as of now. For Venus you need good eyepiece and filter to get good image. Jupiter viewing is good, you can clearly see its four moon and depend on viewing condition you can see some more detail of Jupiter. View is best with plossl eyepiece and magnification of 150-200x.Things which I do not like of the product are the eyepieces supplied with it. First one is 20mm erecting eyepiece, it is good for terrestrial viewing but due to its very small fov it is useless for finding objects in sky. At low or medium magnification, it will be good to have at least one eyepiece that is having good fov. It will be helpful in quickly locating and studying the objects in sky. I have celestron 15mm Kellner eyepiece from the Astromaster eyepiece set. With this you get good fov but image is focused around centre, you will see blurred star images at the edges but it is still sufficient to locate the object. From the same astromaster kit I have 6mm plossl eyepiece that gives nice and detail image at 166X zoom. Second 4mm Kellner eyepiece that comes this telescope is also not useful most of the time as I have 6mm plossl that gives me better image then 4mm. With 4mm you get 250X magnification and with this you can watch some good detail of moon surface. Planets and deep sky object view are not sharp with this. This telescope also provides 3x barlow which can be used only with 20mm eyepiece. Some time I use this barlow with my 15mm eyepiece that give me 200X zoom.This telescope is good if you like manual AZ mount and need compact and light weight product. Focusing at high magnification is challenge and you need to purchase some good quality eyepieces to experience true potential of this scope. My suggestion is buying plossl eyepiece for high magnification and some good quality 15 -25mm wide FOV eyepiece. If you need to do collimation then buy laser collimator as it is easiest and accurate method. But make sure you remove corrector lens from focus tube before doing collimation.You will also receive starry night simulation software. It is good tool to study star positions and useful in finding some great deep sky objects.

Soy novata en esto de la observación, y como primer telescopio está muy bien. La primera vez que mire la luna llena me quede muy impresionada por los detalles que es capaz de captar, incluso me deslumbraba la luz que desprendía. Cosas de novata :) recomendable 100%

Un gran producto para comenzar a mirar diferente.

I took this up to the mountains camping. As my first telescope, this was a blast to use. It is powerful enough to view Saturn and its rings, along with Jupiter and five moons at the time I was looking. It provides a fantastic view of the moon as well. Well worth the money.

I love this telescope. This is my first real telescope, but I have had several smaller ones. You can easily see the moon very close up and with the higher magnification lenses you can see planets such as Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. It is difficult to see the planets any bigger than shown in the pictures unless it is a very clear night with no moisture in the air. However, you can easily see the rings around Saturn and Jupiter's red spot on a clear night if you get the focus just right.

This is my first telescope. But I had put in a lot of time to learn about telescopes before I made a choice for a beginner’s telescope. I had my doubts about this scope when I first used it.The scope came with the cap for the secondary mirror (which had adhesive to keep it in place) stuck to the primary mirror. When I pulled it off it left a smudge of adhesive on the mirror. I had also bought a laser collimator with the scope only to find that this is a Bird Jones style scope requiring partial disassembly to use a laser collimator. Also, the primary mirror is not center dotted. This all seemed like more potential work that I really wanted to take on as a novice.I called Celestron to ask if the primary mirror smudge was an issue, they said it was not. I also asked why the primary mirror is not center dotted for collimation and they said the scope was collimated at the factory and would not need collimation by the consumer. The Celestron rep was helpful and patient with my questions, so no problem there.I was under-whelmed with my first two viewings. The only easy target at the time was Jupiter. It was rather fuzzy and undefined. And so I undertook to disassemble the scope to center dot the primary mirror and laser collimate it. It definitely needed collimation. The secondary mirror was way off. And of course the primary mirror was off too as expected after I disassembled it. To my relief, all of this was pretty easy to do. I had the whole project done in about 30 minutes.And that did the trick. Jupiter resolved nice and sharp. I could see the cloud bands and the four moons were sparkling jewels. Better yet, Saturn was now up. What an awesome sight! Beyond my expectations. I could see the rings clearly to the degree that I could tell how they oriented around the plant (with a 12.5mm eyepiece and a 2x Barlow). I couldn’t make out the Cassini Division, but I was very impressed with the detail and clarity provided by this beginner’s scope.So now, for the money, I’m very pleased with this scope. But those contemplating purchase should know that this is a Bird Jones style scope and it may need collimation to get the most out of it.One last note: the eyepieces supplied are not very impressive, but useable. I bought a set of Plossl eyepieces (20mm, 12.5mm, 6mm) and a 2x Barlow under the assumption they will still be of good use if I upgrade to a better telescope in the future. I think that was a good supporting purchase.

Was as expected, is my first telescope and is work great! The moon look great, i could appreciate Jupiter and it moons.

My granddaughter and I have been checking out the stars and the planets. We had a little trouble trying to figure it out at first because we were going to fast when we were trying to focus and we shot right past it. After we had a friend show us to slow down, we were able to see it and haven't stopped looking at the stars since. A great way to bond with the younger generation!!

Real easy to set up and learn how to use it

Find a model that you can buy a replacement starfinder because sooner or later your going to need one. The starfinder didn't work right out of the box. Tested the battery and it was good. Poor instructions on how to get to the battery and how to turn on and off the view finder, had to find a youtube video. I would like buy another one but, cannot find a replacement so I must return telescope or pay to have one shipped back and forth from the factory. A warranty replacement would cost more in shipping than the part is worth with no guarantee that I just won't get another bad one and have to pay to have it replaced.

I bought it for my son. But I love it and find a new hobby for myself!

Mon petit fils de 9 ans a réussi à le monté !!Je ne cache pas que nous sommes resté à coté de lui, et lui avons donner les recommandations pour ne pas toucher l'intérieur ou les lentilles des objectifs.

I am using it for almost one month. Thing I like about this telescope are1. Good stable mount - I preferred to use AZ mount as it is easier to use. It has slow motion adjuster which is some time difficult to operate but it is useful to track object when using high magnification. Mount is light weight and very easy to carry. Assembly of scope with mount is just two step and can be done within a minute.2. Overall very compact size - I wanted a telescope which could give magnification in 150 - 250x range so I went for this telescope. Its focal length is 1000mm and primary mirror is 114mm, telescope tube itself is short around 600mm. This is not a true Newtonian reflector but a Bird Jones version, which has spherical corrector lens in focus tube to correct for spherical abbreviation and increase focal length. Overall weight of the telescope is 3-4Kg and its very easy to move and carry this with you.3. Performance - Since it is a bird jones design it has some slight disadvantage over true Newtonian reflector telescope like overall FOV would be less then same aperture size Newtonian scope. Corrector lens would slightly reduce the brightness. But higher magnification and compact size overcome these disadvantages. My experience is below 150x magnification image quality is good and it is easier to focus the image but should have good quality eyepiece. Above 150X magnification resolution of focus knob is not sufficient to accurately focus the image, you have to give several trials to fine focus the image. From my experience till around 210-220x magnification only you get fine sharp image. Cluster and nebula views are good with this scope. I have seen just seen Venus and Jupiter planets as of now. For Venus you need good eyepiece and filter to get good image. Jupiter viewing is good, you can clearly see its four moon and depend on viewing condition you can see some more detail of Jupiter. View is best with plossl eyepiece and magnification of 150-200x.Things which I do not like of the product are the eyepieces supplied with it. First one is 20mm erecting eyepiece, it is good for terrestrial viewing but due to its very small fov it is useless for finding objects in sky. At low or medium magnification, it will be good to have at least one eyepiece that is having good fov. It will be helpful in quickly locating and studying the objects in sky. I have celestron 15mm Kellner eyepiece from the Astromaster eyepiece set. With this you get good fov but image is focused around centre, you will see blurred star images at the edges but it is still sufficient to locate the object. From the same astromaster kit I have 6mm plossl eyepiece that gives nice and detail image at 166X zoom. Second 4mm Kellner eyepiece that comes this telescope is also not useful most of the time as I have 6mm plossl that gives me better image then 4mm. With 4mm you get 250X magnification and with this you can watch some good detail of moon surface. Planets and deep sky object view are not sharp with this. This telescope also provides 3x barlow which can be used only with 20mm eyepiece. Some time I use this barlow with my 15mm eyepiece that give me 200X zoom.This telescope is good if you like manual AZ mount and need compact and light weight product. Focusing at high magnification is challenge and you need to purchase some good quality eyepieces to experience true potential of this scope. My suggestion is buying plossl eyepiece for high magnification and some good quality 15 -25mm wide FOV eyepiece. If you need to do collimation then buy laser collimator as it is easiest and accurate method. But make sure you remove corrector lens from focus tube before doing collimation.You will also receive starry night simulation software. It is good tool to study star positions and useful in finding some great deep sky objects.

Soy novata en esto de la observación, y como primer telescopio está muy bien. La primera vez que mire la luna llena me quede muy impresionada por los detalles que es capaz de captar, incluso me deslumbraba la luz que desprendía. Cosas de novata :) recomendable 100%

Un gran producto para comenzar a mirar diferente.