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Celestron
Celestron 127EQ PowerSeeker Telescope - Celestron
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Black Twinstar 60mm Compact Kids Refractor Telescope - Twin Star

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Celestron http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41UihaXtFQL._SL160_.jpg
Celestron 127EQ PowerSeeker Telescope - Celestron
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Twin Star http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41j8usfBYDL._SL160_.jpg
Black Twinstar 60mm Compact Kids Refractor Telescope - Twin Star
Rating info
eComparisons Score
eComparisons ScoreThe "Comparison Score" Is calculated based on the average number of times this item was compared with other items in this category by our users
7.6
7.6
User Rating (Amazon)
User Rating (Amazon)

Five Star Reviews:

48%
Impressed
May 22, 2017
Setup was simple. Just follow the instructions.
I was up and running in a few minutes. Had to wait for a clear night to view.
Currently there is a lot of haze in the atmosphere where I am, so some nights are better than others. For a small telescope, I am impressed and content that I got more than my money's worth.
Moon views are beautiful. I was surprised to see Saturn and clearly distinguish it's rings with the 4mm and Barlow included in the set. Only saw it once though, then atmospheric conditions degenerated​ again.
But I would recommend this telescope to any beginner on a budget. I would!d suggest purchasing the accessory case and a helpful book as well, like 50 things to see with a small telescope.
... got this for my husband and we both really love it for our first "more expensive" amateur telescope
September 25, 2016
I got this for my husband and we both really love it for our first "more expensive" amateur telescope. We have been able to make our the rings around Saturn, see the layers in Jupiter's atmosphere, and see lots of detail on the moon. I just wish it came with some kind of nice storage case and that there was a way to keep it more steady when you are viewing because every little bump of the telescope makes the image shake really bad at such high magnifications. So just keep that in mind when buying because you might want a sturdier tripod or something, especially if you are viewing things with children.
REACH FOR THE STARS!!
July 27, 2014
I have no comparison for this other than the more simplistic Refractor Telescope my father got me as a kid...so now the circle continues, as I got this for my own son. This is the type I always dreamed of getting as a kid, but back then these were in the $500 range and easily too much for my parents growing up. The price point on this for what it offers is awesome, and I selected this after about 6-8 hours of reviewing specs, feedback, and much contemplation. It was this or the 114mm longer tube version, and I opted for this in the end (I figured this had a little more power and it looked more portable than the longer tube of the 114, since we have to go somewhere to view the sky due to the forested yard we have). We have taken it out twice now, & I was NOT disappointed, HOWEVER, a few pointers will definitely help if you're thinking of getting this, to give you the best success chance possible:

1) What i read about was VERY true--buy a telecope for the tube itself, NOT the eyepieces it comes with. After MUCH searching I decided upon a zoomable eyepiece to buy along with this:
http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-93230-24mm-1-25-Eyepiece/dp/B0007UQNV8
I figured this would be a nice way to avoid having to replace eyepieces (it comes with a 20mm and 4mm, and comparing those to this zoomable one is night 7 day difference...the quality and the versatility of the zoomable blows the stock ones out of the water). Its especially nice to start in the 24mm (24x) place, align everything, find your target & focus, then zoom in on it (even with the barlow for additional zooming power), refocus slightly and then enjoy the sight! We successfully located and watched both mars & saturn on our first 2 attempts (using only the free google skymap app for Android to help us locate the planets). What they say about the rings of saturn are so true...you will never forget the first time you see them. It IS a bit small, but you can make them out if everything is in focus and you dont touch the the telescope once everything is in view (until the planet moves out of the field of view, in which case the fine-tune movements of the telescope really shines!). All in all, buy this telescope NOT for the eyepieces, but for the tube itself, which is one of the bets values from everything I have seen. If you pair it with any non-stock eyepiece you will not be disappointed! If you choose not to go with this zoomable one I mention here (that the only additional thing I got for this when I first bought it), even though the price is very reasonable currently @ $51, I'd recommend the 9mm one from Celestron (currently about $20). The stock 20mm eyepiece is "ok" but the stock 4mm I found utterly useless. At least the 9mm aftermarket eyepiece gives you about a 2X zoom vs. the stock 20mm. And then you have to decide if the stock 3X barlow (see next) is worth using at all either.

2) BARLOW. Had no idea what this was before I bought this or started researching info about telescopes. Basically its a zooming piece for your normal eyepieces. The stock version that comes with this is "ok" but I dont have anything (yet) to compare it against. Lets just say it "works" to some extent, but all the reviews I read about said this one sucked...to go after an aftermarket 2x or 3x. From all the reviews and research I've gathered, and now using the stock version, I'd say I'd have to agree in all likelihood. Due to this, and since my son seems to have really enjoyed our first 2 outings, I decided to take the next step & get a combo 2x barlow that also serves as a T-adapter to allow for photography! At only $45, that seems like a really good deal, especially since the 3X barlow I found from Celestron was around $80. The 2x combo can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-Adapter-Barlow-Universal-T-Ring/dp/B00009X3UV
I can't say for sure how this will be, but I can tell you it certainly cant be worse than the stock 3x, which seemed very cheaply made (again you buy the telescope for the mirror & tube). Paired with the zoomable aftermarket 8-24mm eyepiece mentioned above and I think itll be a slam dunk. Plus it allows for adapting for use with a digital camera (well possibly non-digital as well, but we have a sony DSLR that should work with the T-adapter for the model we have, which was only about $10...for $55 I get an aftermarket 2x barlow that adapts to allow a DSLR...pretty decent!).

3) Other accessories: I have not chosen to get any more than I have listed here, but there was 1 have to mention that I may have to invest in at a later time. One of the concerns about the Newtonian scopes (this is one) was the possibility of having to correct/adjust the mirrors. I chose not to buy the collimator (adjusting tool) out of the box, but was prepared to buy either the cheaper $20 one or possibly the more expensive but from all I can see, more worth it, laser-optics one for about $70. Thankfully it seems my scope did not need it out of the box, but I suspect the lower star reviews that say it didnt work out of the box either had the rare scope that needed it from the get-go, or else the more likely scenario, is that the patience needed to align the finder mini-scope on top of the tube, with the eyepiece view (using the 20mm or in my case, the much better zoomable 8-24x eyepiece, which allows for a much wider field of view than even the 20mm stock) was probably the major factor in most of the low reviews. Having done my research I knew it would require patience when using (see more on that below) and it paid off hugely when you have a 6 yr old and an 8yr old wildly ecstatic with waiting a half-hour to get Saturn's rings into view...see below for details).

3) With the accessories out of the way, lets talk about SETUP & USE. First, for setup, I was very meticulous about it and very careful, but from opening the box to final setup & cleanup, I was done in an hour. NO TOOLS were required. Just a touch of patience and carefulness. Seemed very reasonable to me.

4) USE: as I mentioned we have taken this out on 2 outings already (have had it less than a week) and both times were widly successful. I have to say that its really useful to have google's free skymap with you when you use this, or even another product I got from Amazon, called Stellarium. Both are good apps and do things a little differently. Together they made finding the planets a breeze and helped us find, focus, and enjoy the views VERY quickly. Both mars & Saturn were easily found using the apps, mars being the easier one to figure out even without the app, due to its orange-tinge color.

First, we aligned the mini-scope on top (finder scope) using a distant cell tower as a target (rem the images are UPSIDE DOWN, which when viewing stellar objects is not a big deal). Once we had this aligned (took about 5-10 mins) we located mars, and due to the patience of doing the finder scope, we saw mars in the unzoomed 24x eyepiece ON THE FIRST TRY. So do not skip this step if you can!

Now, when we first viewed mars it was a huge fuzzy, hazy blob, with the crosshairs intersected it (in the eyepiece, not the finder scope). I knew we had to focus. So in less than 30 seconds we had it focused and viola! The orange "star" (aka, mars) was seen! The kids were ecstatic! But i told them this was just the beginning :). I zoomed in with the zoomable eyepiece and we could actually make out the slightly crescent shape of mars. But the real goal was saturn's rings! One of the kids had to use the restroom but they said they'd hold it till we saw saturn. I was up against the clock now. but in my 30 mins of use thus far I knew we could do this!

In less than 5 minutes later I had saturn in view at low power with rings clearly visible! Kids were in awe (as was i!) and we even tried the 3x barlow (stock). For this, i found that zooming in past about halfway was not very useful. the image was a bit fuzzy. the 3x barlow at 20-24x was good though. I later discovered that this was probably the upper end of the scope's ability to magnify, roughly 250-300X maximum without image distortion/loss. Thus, going back to the barlow section eariler, is why I think a 2X barlow will be great, using the maximum zoom of the eyepiece (8mm).

FURTHER THOUGHTS: I hope you have enjoyed my "journey" described here and maybe help someone else decide if this telescope or Astronomy endeavor is worth it and which one to go after. The more expensive motorized ones are probably worth it if you are really into Astronomy, but I could nto afford them (they start around $300 for 114mm scopes, which is pretty reasonable), or the $250+ Dobsonians (non motorized but even more powerful than this one) are a good option too. But i suspect with the low-cost additions I already have ordered noted above, this scope will do just find for now. Plus they have an motorized addition for this thats only around $35, but it does not auto-track. If you align everything properly reviews have said it does help a lot. Thats something else I may invest in down the line. All in all, for under $200 starting, I got this scope & the aftermarket zoomable eyepiece which I almost call a must. For around another $50 you can get an aftermarket barlow that even opens up some astrophotography (but I am sure thats going to take a lot of patience to be successful from what i have read). Good luck and REACH FOR THE STARS! :)
Great scope for the beginner and avid user
May 19, 2014
The price was great for this scope especially if you are not sure yet if you want to get into this hobby or if you want to give it as a gift.
you will hear good things and bad thing about this scope but here is my experience with other scopes and this one.
I have had a more expensive scope in the past and quite honestly this one was very comparable to the expensive model. there are plenty of upgrades out there for this scope that will make this scope pretty competitive for the price. the only draw back is the base it is shaky but that can be resolved in two ways either purchase a more stable tripod or base or get some foot stabilizers for it which is cheaper than a new tripod.the other drawback is the finder it is very cheap and yes you will want to replace it. with a better one if your gonna get extremely serious about star gazing. it will give you a general direction in the sky but you must remember the image will be backward to the image from the actual scope and can be frustrating at times. I usually use the hole under the finder scope for a finder and thats just about as accurate if not better. as i said this scope is entry level and highly upgradable. so if you want a great scope you can turn this into one as you are financially able to. but for the price it works rather well. and you are not limited to eye pieces either by brand. as long as the aperture is the same size or you buy the sizing apertures you have endless eye pieces to use by preference or brand. this scope also has a camera mounting point on it so if you want to take pics with your camera you can piggyback mount it on the scope itself. Now if you want to use the optics from the scope itself just purchase the T connector and aperture size for your camera and whala you can use the scope as your camera lense. and you can get some amazing pics with this scope. Plus you should calibrate the mirrors on any scope that is shipped to you or if you travel with it to any location before you use it. Thats where you get the comments that say they got the scope and they have a fuzzy image or it won't focus right. and then they are upset and call it a cheap scope. luckily my mirrors were not too badly aligned and it was a quick fix. if you don't know how to align them take it to a shop or take the time to learn how. plenty of resources online. All in all this is a great scope for the price and i recommend it especially if you're a novice or want to get into the hobby cheaply and easily without the sticker shock and the upgradability is nice.
Well Made
November 23, 2013
I received this scope a couple of days ago. I ordered it after reading the 4 and 5 star reviews. I had NO trouble assembling
this telescope by following the directions. I am not a pro on telescopes. This scope looks to me. to be a highly fancy one.
The reason for the 5 stars is because it appears to be made very well. It is sturdy and is made of mostly metal.

It is much heavier than I expected. I have a lot to learn trying to use it. I am having problems, trying to get it focused to
see through it. This is not the scope, it is something that I am doing wrong. I am just advising you that this scope is well made
for the price and looks as the picture and as described on the seller's page. I cannot take away the rating for this scope for
my not knowing how to adjust it. For someone that knows what they are doing with a telescope, I would highly recommend
this telescope for the quality and price.....

P.S. 11-27-13 Additional information: I have assembled this scope by the instructions and did it right. I have worked with this scope since I received it. I cannot see anything through it. I cannot get it to work. I ask a question and received answers from several owners, they replied that they were having the same problem. I will not take away any rating stars, since I still believe that this is a very well made telescope for the money. I do believe that I received a not so good of a scope. As I said earlier, I am not a pro on telescopes. I have an older scope and used it well. I know that I would have been able to use and see something out of it by now. I am returning this telescope....
58%
Five Stars
September 13, 2017
Grandson enjoys this very much
Five Stars
April 21, 2017
Give this to my Grandson for his 7th Birthday. He was thrilled
Five Stars
April 2, 2017
Excellent choice, easy to use!
This is a fantastic product. Very easy setup
December 29, 2016
This is a fantastic product. Very easy setup. Very easy to use. My grandson loves this and seems to want to go out every evening and enjoy the universe. Highly recommend for educational purpose and family entertainment.
Love it!
October 14, 2016
Easy to assemble and use. Great for the kids and us older children!
Nice value, well designed
September 4, 2015
This was a gift for an 11 yr. old beginner astronomer. Notice the lenses are very clear with no smudges, unlike some other bargain telescopes. Easy to assemble. Includes full size tripod, two refractory lenses and two Barlow lenses, making this quite a complete and versatile scope.Ideal companion book, "50 Things To See With A Small Telescope". You'll get more use out of your new telescope and well worth the price!

Four Star Reviews:

20%
There are no instructions on how to actually calibrate and fine tune the mirrors so I recommend youtube
June 17, 2017
My first real telescope. Assembly is not difficult. It truly does take some patience and trial and error to use if you're not experienced. You will need to buy a laser collimator, which I did not know in advance. There are no instructions on how to actually calibrate and fine tune the mirrors so I recommend youtube, but even with youtube, it takes some learning. You do not have to be a genius to operate it, or calibrate it, but if you are the type of person that finds yourself frustrated with gadgets that don't cooperate, you might struggle. If you are technically savvy and just kinda know how to make things work, you'll be just fine.

Having said that, the things I have seen through this telescope are absolutely breathtaking. Stunning detail of the moon, the rings of Saturn, and Jupiter is what I've spent my time on so far. This is a quality piece.
Great Telescope with Lots of Power
March 22, 2017
It's a great telescope with lots of power, and I would only recommend this telescope for serious amateur astronomers who don't mind taking the extra steps to use it properly; collimation can be tricky, and if not dealt with correctly can lead to frustration. It is a variation of the Newtonian design (Bird Jones); in order to correctly collimate the secondary and primary mirrors, I recommend a laser collimator. Once the secondary mirror is laser collimated, you only have to adjust the primary mirror from time to time, which takes no time at all once you get the hang of it.
Very good for the price
January 30, 2017
Bought this for my daughter. it does a fair job on the constellations, have yet to point it to the moon or other planets. Am happy in that it came with an equatorial mount, Still working on the zeroing in, weather has not been cooperating. I would recommend the optional motor drive, and for those of you with a DSLR, get the t-mount adapter for your model. With the drive and the camera, should bet some excellent pics. Do experience some vibration when adjusting / viewing. I may look at adapting my FPV camera to it, them push out to a screen
The only fault that i can see it that the sight is not in a good spot as I have to use my left eye ...
January 4, 2017
I got this a s a Christmas present and it is the first one. I have seen things i never thought I would see. It let me see the craters on the moon so far and I expect to see so much more. The only fault that i can see it that the sight is not in a good spot as I have to use my left eye and walk around the scope itself to see things, which poses a problem if you knock into it you have to sight it back in.
Nice Telescope with a few Mirror Alignment Issues
January 9, 2014
I got this one as a Christmas gift. It seemed like a good telescope for basic astronomy, with many nice features. But I was initially quite disappointed by the fact that the images seemed rather blurry. It took me two weeks to correct this problem, to the point where now I am finally starting to like it.

I should add that the telescope had probably traveled a few miles around the globe when it got to me, but the box and packaging were in pretty good shape when it arrived.

When I got it, I initially compared it to another $50 reflector, the Celestron 76 mm Discovery, and the results were very disappointing, the smaller one was much sharper. I spent hours reading on the Celestron and other sites on how to adjust collimation with a simple "hole in the cap" and got nowhere. The image was always relatively blurry. Day or night, polaris or no polaris.

I later bought the Celestron 24mm to 8mm zoom eyepiece, which allows me to zoom in without changing eyepiece, and it works very well on the smaller 76mm telescope, but again blurry images on this one.

After quickly becoming an expert on reflector collimation, I noticed that nothing seemed collimated properly. I guess they don't even try at the factory on this one? I decided to order a Celestron 1.25" collimation eyepiece ($30), which can be useful in aligning the optics (the two mirrors) in reflectors like this one. I tried it out on this one, and got repeatedly confused on what should be seen in what reflection when you adjust this or that. I spent entire afternoons fiddling with secondary versus primary mirror adjustments, achieving virtually nothing as far as improved sharpness is concerned. I did replace the secondary mirror alignment screws with better stainless steel ones that would not strip, they are metric m4.

I then tried to collimate this thing on the North Star (Polaris) and that is, for this one, another pure fantasy. The reason is that Polaris is faint, and every time you move a mirror by a tiny bit (as explained in the Celestron instruction) the star just darts out of view in the eyepiece. More frustration and still no luck in getting this thing in focus.

Lastly, I ditched all the Celestron recommendations on day and night collimation (using either the celestron collimation eyepiece or the "ring pattern" for out of focus point sources) and did instead the "EYE-DOCTOR TEST" :

I wanted to see how sharp I can get this one, when there is no wind, no shake, no atmospherics, no moving planet, no mist etc. So I placed the telescope at one end of a long corridor in my house, and a nice clean printed envelope with some sharp text on it at the other end. With this method (which I seemingly invented, as it is not described anywhere in the instructions nor on the Celestron site) I was finally able to adjust (by very small increments) the three screws on the secondary mirror till I FINALLY got a nice sharp picture of the writing on the letter. Note that this last procedure did NOT require the collimating eyepiece! Just the regular 4mm eyepiece that comes with the telescope. Success!

As a by product, I found that in fact in the end all three eyepieces work rather well, down to the 4mm which is a bit faint, the 20mm with the 3X Barlow is better.

Now I can finally see the main two stripes on Jupiter and the Orion Nebula with some clarity. In conclusion:

Plusses : Potentially sharp optics and large aperture. Reasonable price. Sturdy mounts. Useful eyepieces.

Cons: Imo optics needs to be carefully aligned by the method described here. Mine was definitely NOT aligned and, initially, as a result disappointingly blurry.

EDIT: After a few more weeks of use (February 2014), I spent some time using the Celestron collimation 1.25" eyepiece ($28 here on Amazon). My conclusion is that it is a very useful, if not essential, tool for this telescope. To avoid any further issues due to my previous messing around, I first screwed in the secondary mirror (by loosening up the three alignment screws, and pulling in the secondary mirror all the way in until it barely touches the mount), and later pulled out the primary mirror as well(by pulling out all six screws until the whole unit comes out, then reinserting the mirror after making sure the secondary was pointing the right way, straight to the back). Then, using the Celestron collimation eyepiece with its crosshair, I carefully adjusted the secondary and primary orientations (three screws for each mirror) until all the crosshairs overlapped perfectly. In other words, the crosshair in the eyepiece has to overlap perfectly with its reflection through mirrors 1 and 2, and back to the eyepiece. This takes time and patience. After having done that, the image quality seems pretty good and rather sharp. I went down to about 8mm, I don't recommend getting lower than that. The best setup for this one is the 20mm eyepiece, either by itself or with the included 3x Barlow (which then gives 20/3 = ca. 7mm). I also got some Ploessel eyepieces, but they will do you no good if the mirrors aren't aligned first.

PPS. I found (April 2014) that the best way to collimate this (Bird-Jones or catadioptric design)telescope and get nice sharp images is to remove the focusing lens at the bottom of the focusing tube (takes 10 mins), align the secondary and primary mirrors with an inexpensive LASER collimator (mine is an LK1 $30 from seben dot com, takes another 10 mins to do this part), put the corrector lens back in and reinsert the focusing tube (don't touch the lens with your hands, takes around 5 mins). With this method the results are guaranteed to be reproducible and consistent. The images are then consistently sharp.

PPPS. The other day (June 2014)I talked at length to a very nice and helpful person at Celestron technical support (Will?). He suggested to check the following thing. The secondary (smaller, flat) mirror is oval-shape and mounted right under the focusing tube, held in place by three (outside)-plus-one (center) screws. Now put a focusing cap (just an eyepiece cap with a small 1mm hole in the center) at the (top) end of the focusing tube. Then make absolutely sure (after you take again very carefully the correcting lens out of the focusing tube) that the inside of the focusing tube and the secondary mirror, as viewed through the focuser, are perfectly concentric when you view them through the hole in the cap. That is, the secondary mirror has to be perfectly centered when viewed from the top of the focusing tube. Note that the secondary mirror is oval shaped, but will look like a perfect disc when tilted at about 45 degrees. On mine this required several turns on the (secondary) center screw. After this is done, make also sure that the tilt on the secondary mirror is such that you can see the center of the primary mirror (on mine I put a black pen mark at the dead center). Now re-align the secondary and primary mirrors with a laser (in my case), with the cap with a hole, or a cheshire eyepiece. Then put back the correcting lens in the focuser, and you are done. The end result is that on mine it improved the sharpness a bit (I did the eyedoctor test again). I was also able to see more detail on Saturn with a standard 9mm eyepiece, will try taking a few pictures soon.

PPPPS: This telescope really shines (due to the light gathering abilities of it's fairly large mirror) when you want to look at fainter objects. Recently we had good viewing conditions and I had a chance to look the the Great Cluster in Hercules (M13), the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Omega Nebula (M17), and two more star clusters in the same general region (M4 and M62). I took some fairly nice pictures of these objects with a Sony HX200 camera (30x zoom) mounted piggyback on the telescope, using the Celestron motor drive for the 127EQ and long 30sec exposures at 800ISO. See the pictures I posted on the right. I was surprised how well the telecope mount, equipped with the Celestron $30 clockdrive, works when taking long exposures.

PPPPPS: It's October, seven months after I did the laser collimation, and everything is still fine and exactly the same. That tells me that the collimation on this one only needs to be done once, maybe if it gets out of whack during shipping. After that there's no need - unless you bump it or drop it badly. At least that's my experience.

PPPPPPS: It is end of February 2015 now, and I had some very good views of the great Nebula in Orion M42. The scope is still perfectly collimated since almost a year ago, last time I did the collimation with a laser. Again, the message here is that if you spend the time to collimate it properly and don't bump it after that, it will stay sharp almost forever ... Btw I love the $32 celestron R/A single axis motor drive on these telescope, and in my opinion it is a very worthwhile investment. Objects stay in view for almost an hour w/o adjustments.
15%
Four Stars
June 10, 2017
Grandson loved it, great starter telescope.
Looks good so far
February 20, 2017
Looks good so far, we are going to test it out tonight. My 7 year old is very excited.
Christmas 2016 present - will follow-up with a full review after
November 4, 2016
I bought this telescope for my 7 year old granddaughter for Christmas 2016. Currently rated 4 stars because we have not set it up for use yet. Will follow-up with a review after Christmas. It was packed securely for shipment; after looking in the box I did not see any broken pieces, etc. From others' reviews I think it will be a good beginner telescope for her.
Four Stars
September 17, 2016
Bought as a Christmas gift
No assembly instructions included.
November 16, 2015
Looks nice, but no instructions on how to put it together included in package. Had to download them. They really weren't all that much, so do not understand why they could not have been included.
Four Stars
September 8, 2015
My 6 y/0 loved it.

Three Star Reviews:

12%
Not good for novices
April 22, 2017
It is supposed to be the best one on the market for novices, and probably is; however the setup is shown in the manual is extremely small, which allows for errors when putting it together (expecially if your a novice). I have owned it since Christmas of last year and after numerous attempts to line up the finder scope, I gave up. It seems it takes three hands to do it, one to hold the finder scope in position and two more to adjust the screws simultaneously on both sides of the finder scope. If you try to do it by yourself, the finder scope will misalign again because you need to hold the scope in place with one hand and then tighten one screw with the other. Tightening only one screw at a time throws the whole off and it's time consuming and frustrating. The reviews are great and apparently you can see great things with the many lenses it comes with. I bought it to see Jupiter, which is visible from my backyard. Maybe one day is all I can say.
Could be much better
October 24, 2016
Not an avid stargazer and don't have much telescope experience, otherwise I think the rating might be less. My main problem is the "finder scope" . It is plastic and does not lock into place very well. It is very hard to sight in a star or planet looking through the eye piece. I did it first and tried locking in the finder scope, but it just would not stay where it was put and next time I was right back where I started. I am inexperienced so I am not going to complain about he things I am not sure about, but I am sure the finder scope SHOULD be a lot better. I am giving up on this one until I can get a different finder scope, fix this one somehow or even fashion new one. Again, giving the scope the benefit of the doubt on several unmentioned things, but I think the lousy finder scope was worth at least a 2 star deduction in itself.
then the views are pretty good for the price you pay
July 16, 2016
You definitely will need some patience to use this scope. The collimation process on this scope is a nightmare. The instruction manual is weak in this regard and Celestron really should update it to help getting this telescope aligned. This is a bird-jones type reflector. Do your research on this before purchase. If you visit various astronomy forums and ask about this scope, most people will tell you to avoid it because of the time you will be spending collimating it.

After you spent time collimating it, then the views are pretty good for the price you pay. Not great, but you get what you pay for. I could see the 2 main bands on Jupiter and the moons, the rings of Saturn, but struggled to see the Cassini division. The moon looks great. M4 and M13 could also be seen and looked decent.

I highly recommend some better eyepieces. The 20mm with the 3x barlow isn't too bad but the 4mm eyepiece was garbage. Maybe I just got a bad one.

The tripod and mount is the real weak point here. The slightest breezes will cause shaking. With a good polar alignment, the slo-mo controls will help with tracking your object. This is the benefits with using an EQ mount where you will only need to turn one knob to keep your object in view.

The finder scope isn't to great either. It is to easy to bump it and lose alignment with the OTA. The mounting of this finder scope could be better, but it will work.

Assembly of this scope was super easy for me. Barely needed the manual to put this together. It is pretty straight forward.

I am on the fence about recommending this scope. If you don't have any patience, then no. If you have a cool calm head and willing to take this apart and get things aligned, then for $150 this scope really isn't that bad. Like I said, the views are pretty decent.
Could not get this scope to work little too complicated
December 9, 2014
The scope itself came nicely packaged. Price was nice for what is being sold as well.

Cons:
- The scope did not come collimated and I could not see anything'
- Tried to get it collimated from a gentlemen that happen to be at the star gazing event I took this too to surprise my wife and he was un able to do so in the time giving.

I would not recommend this scope for Telescope rookies such as myself unless by chance I just happen to get a telescope that was out of collimation but there were no clear instructions on how to collimate your scope and searching the web I got more lost but in the end this again could be because I am a rookie and maybe it was setup for use when it left the warehouse and got bumped out of collimation during shipping in any case just be prepared to collimate this scope when you receive it.
Ok for kids
May 19, 2013
Not a bad scope for the price. Bought it for our 12 year old's bday. Can see the moon in good detail, saturns larger rings and moons, Mars shows minimal detail. Jupiter is ok and can see the dots of its moons. If you're buying this for a kid or dabbling in backyard astronomy don't buy an EQ mount like this, look for an alt-az mount. EQ mounts are a pain if you're unfamiliar with them. Only complaint specific to this scope other than the mount is the thumb screws are really, really easy to lose when setting it up outside or taking it down and getting replacements from celestron is a nightmare.
8%
KIDS TELESCOPE? MAYBE FOR ALBERT EINSTEIN JR.
September 16, 2017
Don't expect a kid to use this. Way too many pieces and not very sturdy. If you expect a kid to use it, it should be much simpler. KEEP LOOKING.
A little disappointed. Seems good quality but
June 12, 2017
We have yet to use this. There are NO instructions on how to use it or what to do with each piece. Searched everywhere online and still never found anything..not even a youtube video on how to use it. A little disappointed. Seems good quality but, wouldn't know.
Real hard time tuning in to whatever they're looking at ...
May 11, 2017
Real hard time tuning in to whatever they're looking at but they are young and impatient. It's hard for me too but I only have full,vision in one eye
The telescope came in good packaging but directions for assembly were online only
December 26, 2016
The telescope came in good packaging but directions for assembly were online only. I cannot find directions for use and for someone who hasn't used a telescope in years, I really need those directions!Until we can figure this thing out, there are two very frustrated adults and three disappointed kids.
This may be a wonderful telescope, but for the money
July 4, 2016
This may be a wonderful telescope, but for the money, can't we get printed instructions in the box? What about us folks with no internet at home? Cheap-os

Two Star Reviews:

7%
Wish I Bought a Different One.
March 28, 2017
I had this product for over a year now and I must say I've wished I bought a different one. Main reason: Bad turning nobs for the fine tuning adjustments. They are so cheep and keep unscrewing off and there are so many times that even when they are on, nothing turns.

Every time I use this I get frustrated when I have to set it up because something just doesn't seem to work right and it takes me way longer that it should. Would have been much happier spending more money on a scope that actually has decent tuning.
I Thought This Would Be Better Than It Is
December 28, 2016
I'm not an expert on telescopes, but I noticed a couple of things about this one that bother me. For one, the small sight scope that mounts on top is nearly impossible to set up so that it stays in accurate alignment with the main scope. It's cheap plastic, and one little bump will throw it off. The other thing is the main eye piece - you have to hold your head steady with your eye perfectly centered or you won't see anything through it.

Nice views of the moon, but after about 1 minute it's too tiring to keep looking. Anything smaller than the moon is just going to look like a slightly bigger light in the sky.
Side finder scope is ridiculous, flimsy.
July 10, 2016
This is so fiddly. The side scope used to get a general area (with less magnification) is very cheap feeling, difficult to impossible to get calibrated/aimed properly due to cheap plastic parts. I think the actual telescope is probably pretty good, but you need this finder scope to aim, so it is pretty hard to use. I almost sent it back but got caught up in work and couldn't box it up in time.
couple things to consider
April 12, 2014
First off this was gonna be my second and good enough telescope to satisfy my medium expectation for stargazing. For the price and specs this seemed like a no brainer, the scope itself is very solid and well balanced. The moon looks incredible through the large apperatue and well, that's about it. Everything else (Jupiter, mars, other stars) BLURRY. Even at low mag, not sharp enough to be enjoyed, more mag blurs even more. So I thought I would check into collimation, well you cant correctly on this type of scope (bird jones design) so if you just want to see the moon, good scope.Celestron First scope equals viewing clarity, and my tasco 60mm refractor easily out performs on all levels. Save your money and get a similar reflector you can collimate, or Im learning that its hard to beat the much sharper views of a refractor. I returned this and have a very nice refractor on the way. Think twice
Pay the Money for a Nicer Telescope
December 29, 2013
When I first saw this telescope on amazon I thought it looked pretty nice. It had lots of good reviews and I thought it was worth the money but as soon as I got it I had to send it back to the company because the latitude adjustment screw pulled the threads out of the mount. The company did a good job fixing the problem but there was still other problems. The piece that held the the eye piece on to the telescope kept falling off, one of the rings that hold the optical tube to the mount was slightly bent and I just realized that that the piece that tightened the weight to the weight pole is broken. I believe the telescope was remodeled because the weights on the telescope were changed. It used to be that there was two weights a medium one and a small one now celestron has changed it to one large weight.
4%
Don't buy.
September 14, 2017
This didn't work very well and broke the first day.
Unsteady when raised high, and difficult for a 6 ...
October 3, 2016
Unsteady when raised high, and difficult for a 6 yr old to see anything with its mediocre focusing abilities.
Two Stars
December 9, 2015
Cheap.

One Star Reviews:

13%
Screw won't work! Can't turn the telescope up!
August 14, 2017
The latitude adjustment screw does not work. It twists one loop and stops. We need a replacement of that screw!
very disappointed.. got this for my kids from US
August 4, 2017
very disappointed .. got this for my kids from US ... try everything to setup but never worked ... looks that parts are missing or faulty. not sure how to contact seller to return this.
Very difficult to set up for a beginner. Also ...
March 30, 2017
Very difficult to set up for a beginner. Also no instructions on how to use Eye pieces and lenses. So far we haven't seen anything through it.
I bought two, not worth it doesn't work well ...
December 30, 2016
I bought two,not worth it doesn't work well at all.very blurry and does not look out very far at all.
Another 4**** crap
January 26, 2016
Extremely cheap inside and outside. It's not worth more than $50. I bought this to my 8 year old son. He loves astronomy. But now I worried that his hobby will still be limited to just a book reading. Other than moon watching this telescope is an absolute waste. Instead of wasting a money to improve it will rather buy a more expensive later down the road.

Issues -
- plastic viewfinder - difficult to calibrate, not holding position
- tripod - any cheap photo/video tripod will be more stable than Celestron.
- adjustments - horrible design
- optics - 99 cents store quality

BOTTOM LINE
Listen to a smart people (I did not). Do not buy $100-500 range telescope. There are good and horrible ones. Nothing in between
15%
One Star
June 14, 2017
Piece of junk.
Junk
March 4, 2017
Junk. Returning item.
i don't know if this is good one to reccomend to anyone
February 25, 2017
i don't know if this is good one to reccomend to anyone. I can't solve problems that I see picture up side down and no see any planet yet. Not satisfy it and waste money. Want return it.
Poor quality.
January 4, 2017
Poor quality. To much play to be usable. Returning the telescope unfortunately.
Not as good of a quality as it described can't even see ...
July 14, 2016
Not as good of a quality as it described can't even see through the lenses very dissapointed with the or item!!!
I haven't been able to make this work. I ...
August 29, 2015
I haven't been able to make this work. I tried searching for instructions online but it's not as intuitive as you would think.
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Pricing info
Old Price
Old Price
Price
Price
$157.09updated: Mar 18, 2020
$49.99updated: Mar 9, 2020
Features
Answered Questions
Answered Questions
Article Number
Article Number
0115971173391
0737989561290
Binding
Binding
Camera
Toy
Brand
Brand
Celestron
Twin Star
Color
Color
Black
-
Currency
Currency
USD
USD
Department
Department
unisex
-
Formatted Price
Formatted Price
$169.95
$99.99
Height
Height
433.1 in
177.2 in
Legal Disclaimer
Legal Disclaimer
No returns
-
Length
Length
1299.2 in
905.5 in
Manufacturer
Manufacturer
Celestron
TwinStar
Minimum Age
Minimum Age
168
72
Model
Model
21049-AZ-DS
-
MPN
MPN
21049-AZ-DS
613064Y
Number of Items
Number of Items
1
-
Number of Parts
Number of Parts
21049-AZ-DS
613064Y
Product Group
Product Group
Photography
Toy
Product Type
Product Type
TELESCOPE
TOYS_AND_GAMES
ProductTypeSubcategory
ProductTypeSubcategory
reflecting
-
Publisher
Publisher
Celestron
TwinStar
Quantity
Quantity
1
-
Reviews
Reviews
Score
Score
8
9.4
Studio
Studio
Celestron
TwinStar
Warranty
Warranty
2 years warranty
-
Weight
Weight
75.5 oz
16.2 oz
Width
Width
669.3 in
366.1 in
Feature
Feature

3x Barlow Lens

German Equatorial Mount

127mm Aperture

1000mm Focal Length

Comes with aluminum tripod and accessory tray

Perfect for Beginners

6mm Eyepiece, 20mm Eyepiece included

15x and 50x magnifications with included eyepieces

Easy to use, just point and look

2X Barlow Lens, 1.5x Erecting Eyepiece

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