Celestron – AstroMaster 102AZ Telescope – Short-Tube Refractor Telescope – Fully-Coated Glass Optics – Adjustable-Height Tripod – Bonus Astronomy Software Package

Excellent beginner scope! First night saw Saturn and its rings! Optics very clear, hope to see Jupiter soon! Don’t get anything less than 4” diameter on a refractor! I may later step up to a 6-8 reflector but not yet. This scope is great! Really easy setup right out of the box, well worth it.

Did a lot of research on the best telescope to buy, low maintenance with excellent images. Refractor vs Reflective was the question Refractor won hands down when you put everything together to get a well-rounded scope on a budget. Also bought a filter so as to take pictures of the moon, 2X Barlow lens and a 3X. Settled with the 2X as that is perfect. I also added a zoom lens where I can go from 7-24mm. My daughter loves this thing and we're always sky watching together. The image below was taken using my iPhone 15 Pro after I adjusted the exposure perfectly. It was amazing taking this detailed picture with such a simple setup. We have also seen Jupiter and 4 of its biggest moon, Mars, Venus and Saturn. Something happens to your spirit and mind when you see them for the first time with your own eyes. It's almost like they're whispering something to you like Hey! we were here the whole time. WOW! We forget we live in space and rotate around a star (Sun). What we do is pay attention to when objects are closest to the earth to get the most out of this telescope. Worth every penny. Now I want to buy the $1400 8SE from the same company since I want something that gathers more light, yet still small and easily portable. Dobsonian Reflector equivalent is a no go.

When you buy your first telescope, like the same 70mm one marketed under several different names, this one is a huge upgrade on the quality of components at little increase in price (I got mine used like new from Amazon for $110 after tax), then you look it up and realize the refractor crew, or more experienced telescoping community, totally dumps on this one, however I really like it. The red dot is a big upgrade from one of those very entry level finder scopes that's impossible to focus. The mount is much more stable although it's a little short in my opinion, I got a 6mm eyepiece but I'm not sure it was worth it... Well see once the upgraded diagonal comes in. I can easily see the bands on Jupiter, rings of Saturn, and Orion nebula. I have seen the crab, bodes, and cigar nebulas although they ask only appear as a smudge, which is to be expected. Haven't tried Andromeda yet due to my location and season. So I'm my opinion it's a 5 star for the 110$ I got it for, but full price I would not likely purchase it. To be fair I wouldn't know what to get new at the 180 price point, but you would think they could throw in one of those cheap cell phone mounts or that better powerseeker tripod.

This is genuinely so good if you’re on a budget. it is super super clear. the first night i used it, it was cloudy but some stars decided to pop out for me. granted this isnt like a $20,000 telescope so it does just look like a dot, at least with the lenses provided but its super super cool. it was pretty simple to put together except for the finderscope. that one i had to figure out on my own. you have to remove the base of the finderscope from the finderscope itselff. and then slide them together. but other than that its super easy. you have to line it up too dont forget that. that part was a bit annoying but im used to it now. its relatively stable. its got a decent weight to the base. overall a great product at a cheaper price. I would go with this one if you’re looking for one!

I love this telescope. It's my first scope but I've borrowed ones in the past and knew this one would be good to learn with because it is not overly complicated and is VERY easy to set-up. I had it put together in less than 10 minutes. The longest time was getting the disc battery into the back of the red light finder (battery is included) and thinking I had a problem when it was just that I had not screwed the battery cover all the way down. The scope is also light for easy transportation by anyone. I bought this in combination with the $20 PowerSeeker accessory kit which was a perfect match. The telescope comes with 20mm and 10mm lenses in storage containers similar to clear film canisters. The powerseeker kit comes with 15mm & 9mm lenses, red & blue filters & a moon filter in a hard black case. The filters screw onto the end of the lense that goes into the scope - easily with no issues in diameter. If you reorganize the filters to fit all of them in one spot in the case you can put all the lenses from the scope and kit in the case. It was a great deal considering the moon filter alone costs ~$15 if you buy it by itself and now I have more lenses and easy storage. I had the scope out for the first time last night after I set it up. I easily found Jupiter, sighted it in with the red dot finder (move your head until the two red dots make a single point and put that point on the object you want to look at), and then looked at it with the 20mm, adjusting the focus knob only a little. I switched over to the 9mm and saw to my amazement Jupiter's orangish colored cloud bands as well as all 4 moons quite clearly. The moon wasn't up so no comments on that but for a first night out this was pretty impressive. The only negative is that although the scope swings easily from side to side if you loosen the azimuth angle stop, it does not move as easily as I'd like up and down to track stars and planets as the earth spins. This may just be a break-in issue and was not that big of a deal. I had no issues with the stand (I was actually impressed with how well it was made for a telescope this cheap) but I had it at it's lowest point as I like to sit on the ground on a blanket and spread my stuff around me.

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

Zusammenbau: Erstaunlich einfach, auch wenn es erst einmal nicht so aussieht. Die Ausrichtung der Äquatorialmontierung habe ich mir in einem Youtube-Video angeschaut. Es geht auch ohne Ausrichtung, aber dann ist die Bewegung des Teleskops auf bestimmte Objekte frickeliger. Das Teleskop lässt sich von Stativ und Montierung einfach trennen, falls man es mal mitnehmen wollen würde. Stabilität: Das Teleskop ist an sich gut verarbeitet und steht recht stabil. Man darf aber keine Wunder erwarten, besonders bei höheren Vergrößerungen wackelt das Bild erstmal 1-2 Sekunden, wenn man etwas berührt. Ich glaube aber auch nicht, dass es in diesem Preisbereich Teleskope gibt, die wirklich starr dastehen. Auffinden von Himmelsobjekten: Der Sucher mit dem roten Lichtpunkt hat mich wirklich überrascht. Ist er erst einmal justiert (ich habe einen Schornstein in der Nähe dazu benutzt), lassen sich damit Planeten wie Saturn und Jupiter wirklich einfach anpeilen. Das war bei einem früheren billigen Teleskop viel schwieriger. Abbildungsqualität: Die mitgelieferten Okulare sind so leicht, dass man sie wegblasen kann. Ihre Abbildungsqualität ist "ok", aber es geht natürlich besser. Da gute (nicht sehr gute!) Okulare gerne mal 30-60 Euro kosten, ist es verständlich, dass hier gespart wurde. Es ist wie in der Fotografie: das Glas kostet immer am meisten. Ich habe mir das Celestron 8-24 mm Okular Zoom 93230 dazu gekauft. Mit ihm ist die Abbildungsleistung sichtbar besser. Man ist außerdem flexibler damit und muss nicht die ganze Zeit Okulare wechseln. Ein von mir testweise gekauftes 15mm Festbrennweiten-Okular (Svbony SV154 15mm 70 Grad ) ist noch einen Tick schärfer und der Blickwinkel ist größer. Kann man machen, muss aber meiner Meinung nach nicht unbedingt sein, da das Celestron Zoom sehr gut ist. Was kann man mit diesem Teleskop sehen? Da ich mitten in der Stadt wohne, habe ich mich bis jetzt auf Mond, Jupiter und Saturn konzentriert. - Der Saturn ist sehr scharf sichtbar, eine Vergrößerung (Zoom) vergrößert das Bild, bringt aber nur wenige neue Details. Man kann den Mond Titan als winzigen Lichtpunkt sehen. Die Teilung oder den Schatten des Ringes konnte ich bisher nicht sehen, die Sichtbedingungen waren aber bisher allenfalls "gut". Ab einer Vergrößerung von ca. 60x wird das Bild merklich dunkler und "wabert". Im Bereich 40-50x ist man am besten aufgehoben. - Den Jupiter sieht man mit seinem 4 größten Monden sehr deutlich. Man sieht die Bänder des Jupiters, den "Fleck" konnte ich bisher nicht sehen. Zur Vergrößerung gilt das beim Saturn Gesagte. - Den Mond kann man natürlich sehr gut beobachten. Bei 24mm ist er gesichtsfeldfüllend und beim Hereinzoomen kann man dann einzelne Krater und deren Schatten (je nach Mondphase) sehr schön anschauen. Hier lohnt sich das Zoom-Okular besonders. Erwartungsmanagement: Man darf keine Wunder erwarten, die Planeten sind bei Weitem nicht "bildschirmfüllend" zu sehen. Es ist eher so, dass sie ca. 5% des Gesichtsfeld einnehmen. Aber man sieht alles, was wichtig ist, was schon beeindruckend ist. Ich glaube nicht, dass im Preisbereich unter 2000 Euro viel mehr möglich ist, was auch der Bewegung in der Atmosphäre ("Seeing") und der Montierung (jede kleinste Bewegung wird 40-60-fach vergrößert) geschuldet ist. Mögliche Vergrößerungen: Mit den mitgelieferten Okularen 50x und 100x, mit meinem Zoom 40x bis 125x. Mit einer 2x Barlow-Linse (z.B. Svbony SV137) verdoppelten sich die genannten Werte unter einem leichten Verlust an Bildqualität. Sinnvoll bei den Planeten meiner Meinung nach 40x-60x, beim Mond sieht man bei 125x auch noch Interessantes, aber das Bild wird viel dunkler und wabert durch die Atmosphäre. Für kleinere Vergrößerungen beim Mond ist ein Filter zur Verringerung der Helligkeit (z.B. Celestron 94119) sinnvoll. Ich gebe insgesamt 5 Sterne, obwohl man doch Einiges dazu kaufen muss/sollte. Es ist aber illusorisch anzunehmen, dass das bei diesem Preis anders möglich wäre.