Telescopes
(223)
results 1 - 20 of 223 reviews
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I'm a reef keeper / clownfish breeder. This microscope was mentioned at MACNA this year and looked like what I was looking for. As a bonus it takes nice pictures and videos. No more looking thru a tiny view finder. Your specimen is right there on the screen in front of your eyes. Anyone gathered around can see the clear image. You can also share it using the picture and vid capture. Nice product, nice quality, nice price!
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A neighbor couple got this telescope, used it a couple of times, had trouble operating it, and it sat for 2 years collecting dust. They are novices with telescopes and recently asked me to look it over. I found some errors in assembly and fixed them, and also used Celestron's inexpensive collimator tool to find that it was out of collimation. The manual had a crude collimation method of using the reflection from your eye, and then mentioned that you can buy the tool if needed (it is needed). The optics produce excellent images with the 20mm eyepiece - no problem there, except for a poor finderscope mounted on a wobbly / hard-to adjust plastic mount. Some others report a wobbly equatorial mount, and I noticed the same thing. The shaft that goes in through the center of the RA setting circle has way too much play. To fix most of that, you will notice two nuts that connect the RA Slow motion control worm threads up against the gear behind the RA setting circle. Loosen the two nuts some
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I purchased this microscope to be able to examine coins a lot closer and take photos. It works just as advertised. Led's reflect in the picture if the coin is inside a reflective surface(plastic case, etc).
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With scopes a buyer has to approach with patience and the right expectations. There are plenty of articles out there describing what you can expect and what types of scope you can use for different types of viewing and it's well worth reading up on this before buying any scope. I bought this scope because of the LightSwitch feature. This means the onboard computer uses a combination of GPS, digital compass and pattern recognition to figure out where the scope is and to align it so it can find objects stored in it's Go-To database and so it can track objects as they move across the sky. Go-To scopes without LightSwitch require some knowledge of the location of different stars and manual alignment steps before you can use them to locate and track objects. The advantage of LightSwitch is that instead of slewing the scope to the vicinity of the object you choose to view, leaving you to do final adjustments, it will put the object in the eyepiece every time. The other attractive features
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As simplistic as aim the scope and view the skies. This telescope is an premium value for the beginning astronomer especially considering the price, but more so because of the painless operation due to it's almost child-like design. It is exceptionally maneuverable and surpassingly portable making constellations easy to find, anywhere. The names of many significant astronomers and scientist are cleverly wrapped around the optical tube reminding the viewer of the 400 years of history behind this scopes design. While surveying the skies, one can analyze every crevice of the moon and even the larger of Jupiter's satellites. When not in use, this telescope works great as a decorative piece to add atmosphere to any desk or bookshelf. Overall- a great buy. I don't however, recommend purchasing the accessory kit that compliments this scope for the sole reason that it is unnecessary. The lenses do make a nice edition to those that come with the FirstScope, but neither are more powerful than the
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Avoid this telescope at all costs. I had great hopes for this instrument after reading stellar (no pun intended) reviews in Sky and Telescope. Such high hopes, in fact, that I sprang for next-day shipping. For some reason UPS decided to hold my package for 'extra processing' and my next-day shipment turned into a third-day shipment. I think UPS must have tossed the box under the wheels of one of their brown trucks. If you enjoy looking at dim, blurry spots of light that resemble what I imagine a Christmas tree at 100 metres viewed through a glass pane smeared with Vaseline looks like, you'll enjoy this scope. I tried both the low power and high power eyepieces. The low power showed the secondary mirror and it's armature no matter what I did. The high power was unusable. As a groundtruth, I took my Nikon 10x50 binoculars outside with the Firstscope and let my wife try both. With the Nikons, the Milky Way elicited a gasp. Thousands of bright, sharp stars. Jupiter was crisp and the moons
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For less than $150, this telescope is a great buy, considering you get such a large aperature. The equatorial mount is more difficult to use compared to the altazimuth mount, but is much more useful if you want to track objects as the move through the sky. I would definitely recommend this telescope to someone wanting to dabble in amateur astronomy, without having to spend a lot of money. But this telescope probably isn't the best for a child, because of the complexity of the mount. The reflector will also require more maintenance (cleaning and collimation.) If you spend more time with it, you probably should get the Celestron lense kit, and also get the clock drive.
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I have a professional degree in astronomy before turning to medicine. I also have over 40 years of observing experience. This is a wonderful off-the-shelf telescope for the amateur observer who is mainly interested in visual observing. Optical and mechanical quality and image stability are excellent. I use a digital camera with it for planetary and lunar work, but I don't do deep-sky photography. This type of alt-azimuth drive/mount is not really designed for serious deep-sky photography, but it is terrific for visual observing. My only complaint is that it does not have an onboard memory clock, so the time, date, and location must be re-entered with each use. That is a crazy software design. The other complaint is that the unit I have does not know about the change in daylight savings time dates that was made last year. It is a small hassle, but a hassle nonetheless.
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I belong to a pretty vibrant online astronomy community, and had seen some of our members chat about this scope. While I wasn't really in the market for a new scope,[...], it was too good to pass up. I've written a full review on my blog, Faint Fuzzy, which can be read here: [...] Review Summary: PROS: Surprisingly good construction, very good views for a starter scope of this aperture CONS: Eyepieces leave somewhat to be desired, they work acceptably well on the moon. For the money, this is a solid little scope for those evenings when you don't want to lug out the big guns and just want a quick peek at some brighter objects. For kids or newcomers to the hobby, this little scope and a copy of Turn Left at Orion: A Hundred Night Sky Objects to See in a Small Telescope--and How to Find Them will get them jump-started very nicely.
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I use this microscope in my research work to take a quick look at small features (10's to 100's of micrometers) on micro-milled metal parts. Because the refresh rate of the image is a little slow, it is tricky to get in focus. That said, this camera is useful for quick, basic inspection. Color balance and light levels are not great, but can be adjusted in software if needed. This would not replace a good microscope with a good camera, but it is a good option if you're on a budget.
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This seems to be a well built scope for beginners. Make sure that you buy the accessory set because it has a critical finderscope with it. We took our telescope out the first night we had it and found it very difficult to get it to point to Venus. The magnification is obviously higher than human eye and this made it hard to "eye ball" where you wanted the scope to point. Took about 15 minutes to get it to point to the brightest object we could see. We didn't purchase the finderscope and other accessories initially; a week later they arrived. It is now much easier to get the scope to point to the object you desire. The finderscope is the trick and should have been included with the original scope. Have fun!!
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I purchased this microscope despite the mixed reviews because of the easy educational use. The large LCD screen enables great discussion with my daughter. We can point out and explain what she is seeing and guide her with the control knobs. She is only 5 yo which means a traditional microscope would probably be useless. As for quality, it turns out that this one had a virus installed on it that Norton Antivirus quickly detected and removed. Otherwise I would have given it 5 stars. The screen is clear, the magnification is fantastic, and it is easy enough for a 5 yo to operate.
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I buy error coins from e bay,,for years now and thought id sell some , and i needed to get some real clear close ups of the coins,you know so i could sell them , i went on your web sight (Amazon)and looked at some microscopes that could take pictures,and the celestron #44340 with a lcd screen, and stated it could take picture,,perfect,just what i was looking for ,so i bought it, it arrived really fast,when i prepared it to take pictures it failed,,,not only would it not take pictures you couldnt even see it ,so i called up clestron and talked to some rude guy,who said it wouldnt take pictures because the lowest power lens it had was was to powerful and all i would be able to see is a piece of linclons beard?I told him about what it stated on their brochure about it,it stated it could take pictures of coins!!!He got angry with me for going on and on about it..(rude)//now i had to down load prepaid passage to send it back,as of now, i have not received my money back,its not easy when they(clestron)print
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works well, takes still and movie images. a little touchy on the focus, a bit like cheap binoculars, but it works once you get the hang of it. I also wanted to setup on Linux, but the imaging chip is not standard. I inquired with Celstron and their technical support line replied that it's proprietary. Oh well, at least it works well under windows. I have example images and movie of insects from my garden at mentalfest dot blogspot dot com. Overall, I feel it's a good value for personal hobby use.
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I bought this telescope to gain some experience with telescope optics before spending "real" money on a more powerful instrument. In that capacity, this really is the perfect thing to buy. Celestron really did go to some trouble to design a decent telescope, but for under $50, you can expect to bump into the limitations fairly quickly. If you are trying to learn about telescope optics, this is actually a good thing -- you will learn as much from what this telescope cannot do as from what it can. However, if you buying it to do astronomy (rather than to learn about optics), some advice : 1) Do *not* buy the accessory kit. There is no way you can get your head into a position where you could use the spot finder. Unless you are a squirrel. 2) *Do* buy some better eyepieces and a Barlow. With the included eyepieces, Jupiter is a fuzzy orange circle. With a better eyepiece and a Barlow, I could see the bands, the Great Red Spot and the poles. The weakness of this telescope is the included
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I'm fairly new to astronomy, but I expected better quality when I purchased this eyepiece kit from Celestron. After reading some of the reviews here, I was convinced that these were going to be some decent eyepieces and filters. This kit may be alright for some, but I found them lacking in quality of fit and build and would not recommend them to anyone who has the desire to use the high-power eyepieces (9x, 6x, 4x, etc). I bought these because of the low price tag, and for the most part, I regret not just buying one or two better quality eyepieces from Televue. The filters were really "cheap" too.
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After my kids had a lot of fun with one of these on a cub scout campout I figured it would make a good gift for the family. I will agree with other reviews that this is a pretty cool device but is not perfect. At the current price I would say the SkyScout is a good product though. My only "issues" I've had have all been correctable. Initially I was having problems getting a GPS lock on startup but I discovered if I left it lying still on the ground vs. holding it in my hand (and moving it around) I had no problems. Only once have I gotten the interference icon but sure enough when I looked up I was standing right under power lines (duh!). The overall accuracy is good though I've noticed when using it to locate objects it isn't perfectly precise and tends to wander. For example with the moon, it will locate it precisely once in a while but it often can be slightly (randomly) off the viewfinder when it shows the "locked on" ring. Still I would say the SkyScout has been a great help and has
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Since I am a beginner I occasionally use this. But, I keep thinking of purchasing eyepieces of higher grades in the future. Optical qualites are fairly limited. The extreme small ones are too dark to use. It might be better to purchase 15mm and Barlow(sp?) lens seperately.
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This telescope is like the transistor radios in the 60's, more numbers are better. Back then they would install totally nonfunctional transistors, and boast that they were 18 transistors (maybe 6 functional) and jack up the price. Celestron specifies 1000mm focal length, with a 700mm tube, this is impossible...magic? No. Add a lens at the bottom of the focuser, and voila ! But then you are only using the center 2/3 or less of the mirror, not the whole thing. Collumation (alignment)is impossible with this pig. Truly a POS
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We bought the Skyscout for a Father's Day present. 50 year old eyes that need cheaters to see can't see the small text in the dark. We have to hand over the unit to our son to read the description! We're disappointed...
