Celestron 31051 AstroMaster 130EQ Motor Drive Newtonian Reflector Telescope, Dark Blue

Review of Celestron AstroMaster 114EQ Reflector Telescope: Update (July 2018): I've spent a lot of time with this telescope now, perhaps 100 hours, and have an even better opinion of it than before. As a cheap small telescope it is ideal for beginners like me and I couldn't ask for a better experience for the right-above £100 price I paid. It is one of the most cost effective pastimes I've enjoyed. With the telescope, I've observed: The Moon Venus Mars and its ice cap Jupiter, its cloud lines, and its big red spot Saturn and its rings Satellites Many open clusters Many globular clusters A few nebulas (The orion nebula is amazing!) The Andromeda Galaxy Over the past months I have gathered some tips for getting the most out of this telescope: * The 114EQ has a corrector lens built into the eyepiece tube that also acts like a 2x barlow lens, essentially "zooming in" by 2x power by default. This works well for planetary viewing, but for objects like open star clusters and the andromeda galaxy it can be too much magnification to get a wide enough view with a 20-24mm eyepiece. Also, for faint objects like nebulas it can reduce the exit pupil of the telescope to a very small size, which limits the ability of your eye to gather light. A solution I found is to use a 0.5x barlow lens to reduce the overall power to 1x. I recommend the Solomark 0.5x Focal Reducer available on Amazon, which screws into the bottom of your eyepiece. * I tried a number of different eyepieces, including moderately expensive ones. My favorite experience was the Seben 7.5-22.5mm Zoom Eyepiece. While being one of the least expensive eye pieces I used with the telescope also offered the most adaptable experience. I rarely use the other eyepieces now because the seben zoom allows me to spend more time viewing and less time fiddling. When paired with a 0.5x barlow, it gives the telescope a wide range of configurations that allow it to be a nice platform for viewing all objects below absolute magnitude 10. * The mount has a cheap bearing for the equatorial axis which has a bolt that both acts as the axle and as the tightener. This is where most of the vibration in the mount comes from. In order to make it work well, it is critical that the washers go in the correct order and that the bolt is torqued such that it is tight but not binding. The correct order is the metal washer first and the rubber washer second on the bolt. If they are reversed, the bolt will back its way out when turning the equatorial axis and lead to a lot of wobbling. * I removed the locking screws for the collimation knobs on the primary mirror. The telescope keeps its collimation well without the screws, and the knobs are much easier to adjust in the field without having to take the screws out first. Speaking of which, accurate collimation is critical for all reflector telescopes, so if you are not comfortable learning how to do this time consuming process, you should buy a refractor telescope instead, which does not require collimation. After learning the process, it is painless to do. Reflectors like the 114EQ are cheaper for better image quality than refractors, but collimation is the price you pay. * I switched to using Stellarium for my session planning instead of the included Starry Night. I find Stellarium easier to use, and it also allows me to plan which eyepiece configurations are appropriate for a particular object. The mobile version of stellarium is way better than the mobile version of starry night -- more stars included, and easier interface. Really love this telescope! While viewing feint objects like nebulas begs for a larger telescope, I have found my time with this scope highly rewarding at a fraction of the price. I highly recommend this telescope for budding astronomers. Original Review (March 2018): I spent some of my teenage summers with a cousin who loved astrology and introduced me to many of the concepts. Many years later I decided to invest in my own small scope, nothing like the big one my cousin had. After reading reviews and studying specs I picked the Astromaster 114eq for it's nice blend of small size, price, and performance. On our first night viewing, my girlfriend and I caught views of the Orion nebula and beehive cluster right out our apartment window. Wow! It made me realize what I had been missing out on! I am far from an astrological expert, but I can see that the EQ114 can go far, especially with the right adjustment. Collimation is difficult with the stock screws, but after spending several hours over multiple sessions I got it pretty darn good and the picture is nice to my uneducated eyes. The included software helped a lot to find things to view and to track them down in the sky. I don't want a big telescope due to storage, but I'd like to see how far my eq114 will go. To that end I bought a better eye piece than the cheap ones it comes with to see how far the little guy can stretch. The eye piece cost almost as much as the telescope, but I hear they make a huge difference so I am looking forward to trying it out. It's the kind of thing that will last for 50 years so I'm not worried about the investment. You shouldn't be either! Don't hesitate if you're on the fence, this is a good little scope I can fully recommend.

This review is based on the cost of this telescope after using it for about a year now. The review is for 130EQ-MD. First, to put things into perspective: * A good eyepiece costs more than half of the price of this telescope * A good mount starts at 4 times the cost of this telescope and exceeds 20 times the price The telescope is an excellent starter telescope. Based on forum review, it is probably not the best, but quote close to that. It has all the bits and pieces that you need to learn about while taking the first steps into amateur astronomy: * Equatorial mount: you'll learn about the types of mounts, how to do polar alignment, what is RA/DE and Hour Angle * It's Newtonian: you'll learn about reflector telescopes and collimation. You don't have to bend to look at the stars, which is important when spending an hour or so * Large focal length (you *do not* need more than that): allows you to toy with eyepieces and discover the limits of the telescope. You will realise the effects of the atmosphere and the limits they impose and you will also realise that in high magnifications the stars move too fast and go out of view in seconds. * Decent aperture: You won't be limited by the ability of the telescope to collect light. You will learn what dark adaptation is and how important it is. * Two eyepieces (20mm erect, 10mm): You'll learn what an erect eyepiece is. You'll get used to seeing things upside down. You'll learn to divide the focal lengths to get the magnification. You'll also inevitably learn about apparent field-of-view, eye relief, multicoating, what plossl is and that there is a variety of eyepieces but that you don't need many of them. * A motor: you'll learn the importance of it at higher magnifications. Eventually you'll also try to take pictures, either with a phone or with a camera, in which case you'll start attaching things to it. It's more trouble than you think but the good thing is that the telescope is very sturdy and can take it. Its pieces: * The telescope itself is of good quality * The mount is a *very* good mount for the price. It's sturdy, accurate to adjust and reasonably stable. I can't stress enough the importance of the mount. It's *the* most important part of a telescope. If you're not convinced, take a look at amateur astronomy forums for advice given to others. * The sky pointer is easy to use and very accurate once adjusted (the first time) * The eyepieces are good for the first days. At some point you will probably replace them with something better and possibly add a barlow lens. Look at forums about recommendations. I had very good results with a celestron omni 15mm. I have a celestron omni 5mm which is not useful 99% of the time and can't recommend because of the high magnification and the bad eye relief. An onni celestron barlow works well too. I also recommend getting a 30-40mm plossl eyepiece with good eye relief. * The motor (for the MD model) is painfully basic. Unfortunately it doesn't allow manual micro-corrections when it's attached, even if it's off. It also limits the rotation of the telescope which creates some blind spots (boooo). I had to remove it in some occasions. Overall , it's lots of fun for the price. IMO, you should not try something more expensive as a first telescope because you won't know what to look for. You'll realize that if you're going to invest then it's better to invest on a mount than a telescope. Expect to be able to see Saturn's rings and Jupiter's moons when they are close to Earth. See attached The bads: * The motor is basic and limits the movement of the telescope when attached. Fortunately, it's easy to remove and reattach. * The included eyepiece are very basic, although a good starting point and expected for the price of the telescope

OK, after much research I bought this scope, a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion' and a Moon Filter. Upon unpacking the telescope I found that the tripod was broken (one of the leg supports was cracked (no signs of damage to the packaging). I was so disappointed (it was a nice clear night). I'm afraid the tripod does look quite weak but costs have to be saved somewhere; the equatorial mount and scope look good and I guess this is where you are better off spending the money if the tripod is secure enough. I guess I will just need to handle it with care... Excellent service from Amazon, filled out the returns form on line and a new telescope was delivered 2 days later (before I had returned the faulty one). UPDATE Having used my 130EQ for a few weeks now I can say that it really is an excellent piece of kit with a few reservations: The 'star pointer' (used to aim the scope) is really bad. I could not get this to work and even struggled to find the moon using it! I have now removed it (quite easy by removing two Philips screws) and I bought a Telrad finder which is so easy to use. The Telrad took me 5 minutes to mount and set up (the hardest bit was finding an object to aim at with the scope in the first place). I can now point the Telrad at an object and it is immediately centred in the eyepiece. The Telrad is a bit expensive at around £50 for what it is but but for the difference it makes it is well worth it. It transforms this scope - don't hesitate to upgrade to a Telrad if you struggle with the built in finder. The tripod is not very steady so astro photography is not easy but it does the job and the equatorial mount is a substantial quality mount. At the price - this is fine. The scope itself pulls in a huge amount of light and the best views are with lower magnifications. I can highly recommend the Revelation Eyepiece set which I bought from Telescope House. This set is worth the money for the Barlow Lens, T-adaptor and especially for the 32mm eyepiece which is fantastic. Overall this scope is an excellent introduction to astronomy but budget for an update to the pointer - I can find an object in less than a minute with the Telrad when without it I could spend all night trying and still fail! I now intend to join a local astronomy club and continue my journey in this new hobby. Hope this review is helpful for any newbies like me.

After much searching and investigating I picked this telescope as it had the largest aperture for my price range. It is very well built and was easy to setup and build. The guide is useful, but ended up searching YouTube for a video guide - this also included how to balance the telescope [...]). The telescope itself was supplied with 2 lenses, a 20mm and a 10mm. The 20mm is plastic and I only use it as a starting lens to position the telescope first to what I want to see. The 10mm is a good little lens and give nice view of the stars and moon. I also purchased the 'Celestron AstroMaster Accessory Kit' at the same time - this included lens filters and additional 5mm, 15mm and 2x lenses. This gives more range of magnifications to use with the telescope. Viewing with the telescope is very good. The moon is amazing, but you will NEED a moon filter - it is very bright. You can clearly see the moons of Jupiter and with my additional 5mm lens I can just about make out the markings of Jupiter. As for the other planets they have not been visible in the evenings yet - but can't wait until Saturn appears! The only fault is the StarPointer. It's not that good, but you can work around/with it. I have even had my 4 year old daughter looking at the moon - which she found fascinating as she could see the craters very clearly. Since buying this, I have also contacted Celestron support (issue with the additional lens). They were quick and put me in touch with their local distributor (Hama) in the UK. Hama were also very helpful. All-in-all this is very good for the price it costs. I wanted a good telescope that would allow me to get started in Astronomy, without using it for a short while and having to replace it when I want more. This is a good start and with the right lenses will do for what I want it for. Good quality lenses are not cheap (it's the price of the telescope itself for a set), but I can now slowly upgrade this over time now that I have a decent telescope.

This is my first telescope and my first venture into star gazing and attempting pictures of the planets. This has been a huge learning curve and this telescope has been awesome teaching me and the ins and outs. There a few negatives about this telescope, but I'm glad that it had them because that's how I learnt what I need and don't need. I spent endless hours looking for the right one to buy first and as you will see, this is an expensive hobby. Just accept that truth, there is no cheap alternative. + Easy to build + Eye pieces that came with it and good enough + Semi-portable + Solid telescope + Excellent for beginners + Moon is breathtaking + Mars is super tiny but exciting nonetheless, I have been chasing it for 3 months (why? because I always get something wrong, or somethings not working, this is my learning curve for Mars) + Has potential to be used for astrophotography but I haven't tested it myself yet. + I use an ASI ZWO 224MC with it, works like a peach + Collimating the primary mirror with a laser collimater is ultra easy - I may have been the cause of it by not knowing not to move the telescope by force, but the gears that hold the alzimuth directions and rotations, need to be tightened very very hard for the scope not move. Again, this may have been my fault as when they were locked, I have a habit moving the telescope by force hence wearing down the gears? - Short focal length means planets will be small, even with barlow lenses (but that's okay, you can still see them) - COLLIMATION!!!!!! (Oh my God, this was a huge learning curve but now I do it in less than 1 minute) - Collimating the primary mirror with a laser collimater is easy but the secondary mirror is a nightmare for me. Every tutorial on YouTube shows that if you use the laser collimator, there will be a dot/guide to match it on the primary mirror when you look from the exit of the telescope, but this telescope does not have said dot/guide. So you have to collimate your secondary mirror the old school way which I hate!! Conclusion: Want snaps of the moon & planets ---> 5* Just be weary that it will be tough to get a lot of detail. The moon however is simply breathtaking and stunning. Don't buy this for Astrophotography.

Before I bought my scope I read all the reviews here and to be honest some of them worried me, but I couldn't find better for the price so I bought it. Having now used the scope for six months I feel qualified to comment, and rather than write a straight review I thought I'd answer some of the negative points made previously. Firstly there are those who have questioned the build quality of this scope. Well six months of use have found no problems with the build quality of my scope. If I am being charitable I would say that those who have had problems such as parts shearing must have had poor examples of the product and that maybe QC is not up to much at Celestron. However from my experiences with this and other Celestron products I would say that those users who managed to break their scope are extraordinarily ham fisted. Build quality is fine and indeed better than you would expect for a scope of this spec at this price. Then there are those who have whinged about the quality of the eye pieces. Sure they are not top quality, but the whole scope, mount, tripod and eyepieces cost around £150. You're not going to get a pair of eyepieces which would normally retail at £100 each in a kit for £150 are you. They get the job done and get you started. The only thing I would say about the eyepieces is that if I were speccing this scope I would not include the erecting eyepiece, but would include something else instead. Perhaps a Barlow lens or another atronomical eyepiece, or maybe a good quality moon filter. If you want a scope for terrestrial use you're not going to buy one on an equatorial mount, so why would you want an erecting eyepiece? The most puzzling review is perhaps the chap who was surprised by the size. The dimensions are readily available on the web, and anyway how small did he expect a 130mm reflector to be? Likewise his inability to follow the assembly instructions is not a reason to return the scope. The person who wanted QR clamps on the tripod legs also puzzled me. An equatorial mount will always take a little time to set up and once setup it is presumably going to sit where it is for some time, an hour at least. So what advantage would QR clamps be? You're not going to be picking up the scope and moving it every five minutes as you would with, say, a wildlife scope. So why would you need QR clamps. In short you will not get a better scope of similar specifications and capabilities for the price. This is a classic example of the adage "you get what you pay for". Yes you can get a better 130mm reflector, but for more money. You can even get a worse one for (not much) less. You are not, however, going to get better for the same price. If you want better, pay more. You can't say fairer than that.

You're probably reading this having never bought a telescope before, wanting to know exactly what you're going to get and SEE for your money. As far as the telescope is concerned it's more of an investment than a purchase. It's a real quality piece of kit which I've surprised many people by telling them it only cost ~£100. Once set up it looks quite impressive and I'm sure with proper care it will continue to give you gazing pleasure for many years to come. One of the advantages of a reflector scope such as this is that the optical tube is open allowing you to maintain the mirror surfaces and also collimate the optics for optimised performance. Allow a good hour for proper initial set up (which for me was part of the fun!). It's got a fair weight to it but not to the extent it makes it impractical to move, the tripod can be easily dismounted and collapsed to be put in the boot of a car, for example. The first week I had the scope I was desperate for a clear night until eventually I got my wish and managed to view Saturn from the comfort of my back garden. Despite moderate light pollution and a slight haze in the sky, the scope still produced a crisp, colour image, complete with rings. Admittedly it was small in the viewfinder but you always have the option to purchase additional barlow lenses for increased magnification. It's also amazing just to aim at a seemingly clear patch of sky to reveal a dense patchwork of stars not visible to the naked eye. For optimal viewing its mainly about the conditions, the scope claims to be capable of imaging "deep sky objects" which I believe is possible but you need to be in a seriously dark area, which I shall soon be experimenting with during a drive to the countryside! I'm currently waiting in great anticipation for the next lunar transit to use my newly acquired moon filter. If you're thinking of getting into astronomy and debating whether to push the boat out I would say it's DEFINITELY worth going the extra buck. As a complete astro-virgin, I was able to set the scope up and view a planet over 700 million miles away in the space of a few days. One thing I will say is you need a great deal of patience, aligning the viewfinder is extremely sensitive and takes practice (which again is part of the satisfaction). The scope comes with a software CD allowing you to view when and where objects will be on any given night. The 114 also performs exceptionally well during daytime, using the terrestrial scope I've counted the feathers on many a pigeon from hundreds of meters away, so any budding Ornithologists will also find this function useful. All in all, a great value scope which will delight many an amateur stargazer.

NB After my initial review below, I thought after my experience, I'd amend my review - Having used the scope for a couple of hours, one of the slow motion axles (not the cable itself) came out of the mount and was impossible to put back in. I returned it to Amazon without any quibble and a replacement was sent the next day. However, I used the replacement for only 1 hour and the latitude adjustment screw broke and became stuck in the mount! Bad luck on my part or bad scope? I'm not sure, but again Amazon have been faultless with their returns and customer services, however I won't be acquiring another Celestron instead I've opted for a Skywatcher 130p as recommended by Sir Patrick Moore! I've read what seems like hundreds of reviews for different scopes until my head ached! In the end and as I'm only just starting out, I decided on the Celestron 130EQ after reading (and rereading) the reviews on Amazon and other astronomy sites. It came well packaged with next day delivery and with much excitement, I opened the box. The quick start guide was my first read and when all the parts were laid out, I started. It was fairly easy to put together with the diagrams, but I searched on You Tube and found Celestron's video which was a lot clearer and instructive and anyone buying one of these scopes and not having much experience, I would advise you do the same, especially when it comes to balancing the scope as I didn't quite understand what was required. Being new to astronomy, I tried to figure out from the manual what Polar Aligning was all about; for me being a newbie, it wasn't clear how to do this, but again, good old You Tube helped out so now my scope is at the correct latitude and set to go. All I need now are clear skies which, since I bought this on Thursday 24 October, have been absent from where I live and seem set to remain so for a while!!! I cannot yet comment on the Star Finder for the same reason. I NOW CAN AND ITS RUBBISH! I purchased a Telrad and it took all the frustration away! For me as a female at only 1.5 metre in height, it isn't very portable as the counter weights attached to the mount are very heavy and when the scope is on the mount, it is quite cumbersome to move, but this scope was never meant to be portable. The scope itself, however, is surprisingly light. The slow motion cables seem quite flimsy, but are sturdy enough as I accidentally bent one with the scope as I'd put it on the wrong way round! (Again, thank You Tube!) I haven't had much experience of tripods, but the one supplied, while seeming quite light, is sturdy enough and does the job. I've had a terrestrial look through the scope using the 20mm lens supplied and it does seem good; I was surprised how far I could actually see! NB After this review and having used the scope for a couple of hours, one of the slow motion cable axles came out of the mount and I couldn't get it back in. I returned it to Amazon without any quibble and was sent a replacement the very next day. However, I've used the replacement twice totalling 1 hour and the latitude adjustment screw broke so I couldn't alter the latitude. Again, Amazon have been helpful and their customer services were first class, but I'm afraid I won't be getting another Celestron, I've opted instead for a Skywatcher Explorer 130p as recommended by Sir Patrick Moore!