70AZ Refractor Astromaster Telescope, Blue

The celestron Astromaster 70 As is just an astronomical marvel .First of all the packaging was very good taking care that non of the components were damaged during transit. The components of the scope were very easy to assemble requiring no use of the manual at all. The tripod is sturdy,heavy and made of cast iron which gives this awesome tripod a lot of stability. The pan handle of this tripod makes movement both in horizontal and vertical direction very easy. The tripod comes with lock capability to stabilize the scope at a particular site in the sky. Coming to the telescope itself,its just a beauty with a dark glossy blue paint which gives the scope a lot of glamour. The optics are fully coated to give crisp view. The objective is covered with a 2 inch collar which prevents scattered light to enter the objective . its also has its own cap to prevent dust entry. The scope comes with fully coated 20 mm and 10 mm eyepieces of 1.25 diameter. Even though both are Kellner eyepieces the 10 mm gives excellent view of both land and sky objects. The 10 mm is a bit letdown. However upgradation to 15 mm super plossl gives awesome views. The moon has gotten so near coz of this scope.All craters are easily visible and the smooth rack and pinion focuser makes focusing a glory. Venus going through its lunar like transits are easily visible, Jupiter with its moons.the cloud band of Jupiter can be easily appreciated. Saturn with its rings is just a sight to take ones breathe away.mars with a little adjustment reveals its ice caps with this scope. The orion nebula and deep sky objects like Andromeda galaxy are visible through it. The scope also has its own utility tray for keeping spare eyepieces.The scope comes along with a led finderscope which can be adjusted with two finger screws to bring the finder's dots in alignment with the telescope. This telescope even comes with its own sky software which is also very easy to use. One can chose his own location in the pc and locate objects in the sky with ease.However there is always room for improvement by celestron.The telescope is little jerky at high magnificatins which needs correction. The 10 mm eyepiece should be changed.it has very little eye relief. Since its a 70 mm f13 objective so one should not hope of getting useable magnifications above 140x. I had a 6 inch reflector but this gives much clearer images. Another great part of all refractors is that they don't need any maintenance. The reflectors require constant collimation which is a pain. Then the mirrors slowly lose their optical abilities requiring realuminization which is an even greater pain. But such tragedies are avoided if one buys any refractor telescopes. Overall its a great scope , worth the price. Only thing is that one should buy a plossl 15 mm for best results.....

This is a fantastic beginners refractor telescope. I bought this for my sons 8th birthday earlier this year. Unfortunately we just missed out on the clear skies we had in March with the Jupiter Venus conjunction. That said we've had a few clear skies since then to get good use out of the scope where we have seen some fabulous views of the moon, Jupiter, Venus & Saturn. I would highly recommend an additional purchase of the Celestron eyepiece set to use with this scope. The refractor comes with two eyepieces, a 20mm & 10mm. The 20mm is ok but the 10mm in my opinion is a poor eyepiece. Since purchasing the eyepiece set I don't think I have bothered with either of the two included eyepieces as the set one's are far better quality (in particular the 32mm eyepiece). Getting back to the telescope I was impressed with the build quality of both the tripod and scope. The tripod is an Alt-Azimuth. At first I regretted not getting an equatorial mount for the scope which is recommended over the Alt-Azimuth for astronomy. I'm not so bothered about it now as I find the tripod very easy to set up which means I can get it out of the house and into the garden quickly. My son has also used the scope for spotting on the seafront which an Alt-Azimuth is recommended for so you now have more than one use for the telescope. Perhaps in the future we may purchase an equatorial mount when it's time to upgrade but this suits us perfectly for now. The scope has a dove tail mount for the tripod, I noticed some reviewers complain about the scope wobbling at the mount which I have also experienced but I got round this by taking my time carefully mounting the scope to the tripod. Once done you don't really need to do this again as I tend to put the telescope away by removing the tray and collapsing the tripod legs rather than removing the scope from the tripod. With the stock 20mm eyepiece you will see Jupiter and it's four largest moons, the phases of Venus, Saturn with it's rings visible and as expected with most telescopes very clear close up images of the moon. I think this is excellent for what is a sub £100 telescope. There are of course things not to like at this price range. I've already commented on what I think about the stock eyepieces. My only other gripe is with the diagonal which has a cheap plastic feel to it. It's perfectly functional but I found over time it loosened with the screws not doing a good job of holding it tightly to the back of the scope. I ended up replacing this for a better quality celestron diagonal which cost about £25. Money well spent. Hopefully you can see an image I have attached of the moon taken with a compact camera mounted to this telescope via a 32mm eyepiece. Definitely recommend upgrading your eyepieces, that said at less than £100 this is the scope to get and perfect for starting out in Astronomy. Update - 19-Sep-2012 :- Just like to add that I recently purchased a Telrad red dot finder to use with this telescope which I'm very glad I did as it helped me locate the Andromeda Galaxy last night! Seeing conditions were as good as they get with no moon but still some light pollution what with living 35 miles outside of London and near an airport. People who say that this scope is limited to just solar objects are wrong! You can use this for viewing Deep Sky Objects (DSO) as well. Ok Andromeda was just a faint grey smudge but I still managed to locate it with this telescope using the stock 20mm eyepiece. Simply amazing!

it is a great scope for beginners! I bought it for my 5 yr old son who could see the moon and its craters in his first try!! super easy to setup, looks sturdy and made of quality materials. Displacement not sharp so I guess it will be a good challenge to visualize smaller objects such as Jupiter or Saturn. we only looked at the moon which was amazing! very sharp image ( you do not see same quality in the picture attached taken by my cellphone). all in all highly recommended for beginners who look for sth that motivates you in astronomy. UPDATED: we bought this in last winter so no chance to try it regularly (winter=coldddd), until now (May 2021) that weather is pleasant. and now we started to discover this little powerful scope! the second picture I uploaded is taken with my phone just through the eyepiece! the same way and the same phone I used for the first picture but as you get used to the scope and better adjust it you can enjoy it more and more. the picture quality is that good that I decided to buy the T ring adaptor for my Nikon SLR camera to mount it on the scope and take even better quality pictures. also I bought a set of eyepieces with different magnification plus a set of filters to level up our sky watching experience. all said, I recommend this scope 100%.

Esta genial

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