Celestron - PowerSeeker 127EQ Telescope - Manual German Equatorial Telescope for Beginners - Compact and Portable - Bonus Astronomy Software Package - 127mm Aperture

This scope catches a lot of flack in the forums and here. Let me demystify some of the bad reviews. 1) Collimation This telescope can be collimated easily by eye, if you want to collimate with a laser, you'll have to remove the corrective lens in the focuser tube. If you love to tinker knock yourself out however, this isn't the most powerful scope you can buy so, eye collimation is more than enough to be happy. 2) The finder scope is unusable While I agree, it's not the best finder scope out there and lining it up with the telescope can take a long time but, it is possible with time and patients. It's also replaceable so if you don't like it, get another one. (note: it is a scope and not a finder, the image is reversed in the finder) 3) I can't see anything out of this thing You need to collimate the scope and line up the finder scope, the instructions are in the manual for eye collimation (tip: back the focuser tube all the way out when you collimate, doing this will let you see both the secondary mirror and the primary, also note, this went through shipping and if it arrived with all the mirrors aligned and ready to go, get a power ball ticket because you'd be the luckiest person on the planet 4) The Barlow is useless Please google and youtube what a barlow is and how to use them, it's not a true lens and once you find out its true purpose, it'll make more sense 5) The 4mm lens is useless See my comment on the barlow, using the barlow with the 4mm will tame things a bit, also, get a lens and filter kit with a 15mm and a 9mm lens. 6) The Telescope doesn't stay put on the tripod. The counterweight on this telescope is not for looks, you need to use it to balance the telescope on the eq mount. when the counter weight is properly balanced, you can put the telescope in any position on the right ascension axis and it'll stay put. The Telescope itself also has to be balanced front to back in the mounting hoops (youtube it, there are a billion tutorials on how to do this.) One last comment on this issue is, do not try to push the telescope into position with the clutches locked, use the controls on the tripod to position the scope, if you need to make big adjustments, loosen the clutches (should be OK because your telescope is balanced) position the scope to the general area of viewing, lock the clutches and use the controls to fine tune. If you push the scope around with the clutches locked you're manhandling the gears that the controls are attached to and you can push them out of whack, don't do this. Here's the deal, this is a marvelous telescope for UNDER 200 American green backs!!! When properly set up, balanced and overall ready to view, it's a great scope and it's a lot of fun. Buying upgrades for the scope will add to your viewing pleasure. Yes you can see our planetary neighbors, the moon looks fantastic, in a dark place, you can see some deeper space stuff. Is this a good scope for beginners? Yes I think it is, backyard astronomy is not a plug and play out of the box and looking at Jupiter kind of deal. A telescope is a pretty sensitive thing that takes a little love. If you're just starting out and collimation, calibration and generic tinkering is not your thing, this may not be your hobby, heck aside from sitting on the couch, I don't know what hobby doesn't require a little hands on setup and tinkering. Finding stuff in the sky is hard, small movements at the scope have a huge impact on where you're looking in the sky, youtube is your friend, so is google.

I think this telescope is really great for the price. The stand is kind of flimsy, but that is where they went skimpy. I haven't gotten the chance to view anything at night yet. I did set it up the other day and could see individual raindrops hanging on individual pine needles at the end of my driveway (we have a very long driveway). I was super impressed. I do recommend getting the accessory set ($30 on Amazon right now). We are going to order it since the smallest eyepiece that comes with this one is pretty much useless. That is pretty much the deal with any telescope you get though. You'll always have to upgrade eyepieces. Overall, I am very happy with my telescope. Like I said, be prepared to collimate it. Any reflector telescope is required to be collimated though. There are videos on Youtube on how to do it. I haven't attempted it yet but from the tutorials (and using a laser collimation tool) it looks pretty easy if you are handy. I am an engineer so I am really not afraid to work with stuff like this. UPDATE: I have collimated it and used it multiple times now and I am VERY impressed. I will say, the collimating means everything when using it. I recommend collimating at least every month (or after any bump the telescope takes). This will keep your views clear and your time more enjoyable. We also bought the accessory kit like we were planning. I don’t see how you can use this scope without it. We were BLINDED trying to view the moon (quarter moon at the time I believe) and had to go filters that came with the kit. The eyepieces that came with it are higher quality and much clearer than the included eyepieces. I discovered that viewing at night with lights around you ruins the experience. Just having the kitchen light on in the house ruined our views from out in the yard. Make sure it’s as dark as possible. We also learned that your views aren’t anywhere near as good if your eyes aren’t adjusted to the dark. The first time I viewed Orion’s nebula I had just walked outside and viewed it. A few nights later I set up again and waited about 20 minutes outside before viewing and WOW!!!! The difference was incredible. It went from a slightly white cloud to a BEAUTIFUL image with colors and significant detail. We also got to view the andromeda galaxy and that was pretty amazing as well. Tonight’s target is the moon, Orion’s nebula, and the 7 sisters. If you know how to use it, you will enjoy it greatly. I plan on upgrading telescopes eventually because of my experience with this one. These are the items we have bought for or upgraded on the telescope: Binoculars. Got a really good pair at Sams Club. We can see nebulas with them as well. They’re great for finding sky targets. Accessory kit. Get it. Worth every penny. A new finder scope. We got the laser dot one on amazon for about $20. Totally worth it. The one that came with it is pretty much useless. Sky maps. These help in finding what you want to see. Red flash lights. These are a must have since they will not affect your night vision. I got 6 of them for $9 on amazon. Some star apps for iPhone. Download Celestrons app. It will help a lot. I also recommend SkyView. Not as good as SkyPortal by Celestron but still good. I also feel like I should mention that the free software package you get for your PC is AWESOME. I really recommend using it. EDIT: I uploaded some pictures I took with my DSLR camera. They are a little blurry because I didn’t have a remote shutter. The camera moved some when I pressed the button. Hoping to snap a shot of Orion soon once I get a remote shutter.

First I want to address some of the complaints about this scope being difficult to collimate. With a laser collimator that is simply not true. There are a couple of YouTube videos showing how to collimate this scope with a laser collimator. It took me less than 15 minutes to do and it was my first time collimating a scope. The good. Once properly setup the scope is enjoyable for a telescope in this price range. Remember, even though it is the top of the Celestron Powerseeker line, it is still a low end telescope. The picture of the moon taken above is from my cell phone camera held in front of the eyepiece under windy conditions. I had yet to properly collimate the scope. But on the same night I took this photo, I was able to view Jupiter through a 20mm eyepiece (the one included with the scope) and was able to discern the color variations in the cloud bands. I could also see several of the moons as bright spots around Jupiter. On my second and third nights I was able to get better views of Jupiter thanks to 8mm and 12.5mm eyepieces, and was also able to view Saturn and see the planet and its rings. It is important to properly setup your scope, align your finder scope, level your tripod and polar align your scope for your location. Once again there are videos available that explain and demonstrate those things. I will say that the included finder scope is cheap and will need to be aligned for each use. It is one of the items I recommend upgrading or adding to enhance your viewing experience. The included 4mm eyepiece and the included 20mm eypiece should be replaced at your earliest convenience, although the 20mm eyepiece is usable and will not immediately detract from your use of the scope. The bad. The included eypieces are cheap and should be replaced as soon as you can afford to, and the included finder scope is difficult to aim and keep airmed. A decent finder scope can be obtained relatively inexpensively and look for one that either has thumbwheel adjustments or front and rear adjustment screws to assist with aiming and to help keep the alignment in place. Also, the 3X Barlow lens is ill suited for this scope given the maximum recommended magnification is limited to 300X. The instructions are not super clear, especially for beginners, but to be fair, most instructions for products these days are equally terrible. However, there are enough videos online to help with setup and use of your scope, I don't fault Celestron for poor instructions. Things I recommend buying to enhance your viewing experience. I highly recommend a laser collimator. Order it with your scope so you can make sure it is properly collimated right out of the box. It is an inexpensive tool that will allow you to focus on enjoying your scope as opposed to struggling to set it up. Next, get yourself a set of eyepieces and filters, especially a moon filter. There are various sets of filters and eyepieces available, either in kits with both, separate kits, or you can buy them individually. I ordered a kit with an 8mm, a 12.5mm, a 32mm, and a 2X Barlow lens. I also purchased a filter set consisting of 5 colored filters, a polarizing filter, and a moon filter (I used the moon filter with my 8mm eypiece when viewing the moon on my second night and it helped enhance the details of the lunar surface). And given that I do have some man-made light sources close by I purchased a light pollution filter which has yet to arrive. I also now have a 6mm eypiece on the way to replace the low quality 4mm eyepiece that came with the scope. With decent viewing conditions you should get many nights of enjoyment out of this scope. The views of the moon are quite impressive, and to be able to see Jupiter and Saturn well enough to see the colors in the Jupiter cloud bands and to see where Saturn ends and the rings began exceeded my expectations. I can't wait to get views of Mars and to be able to see if I can hone in on some deep sky objects such as Andromeda and some of the more viewable nebulae that are visible from this hemisphere.

I purchased this telescope on October 2023. This is the first telescope that I've ever owned, and I have used it almost daily for the last 2 months. A lot of reviews online will tell you to avoid this telescope completely due to the Bird Jones design. While there are certainly better beginner level telescopes out there, this one offers great functionality at a very accessible price point. As with any hobby, you WILL have to dedicate a lot of time and patience in order to get better at using the telescope. Do not expect it to work perfectly straight out of the box. Take your time to read through Celestron's telescope guide or any other web page about using the equatorial mount, polar alignment; and most importantly: COLLIMATION. Trust me on this, if you see blurry images with this telescope, it is almost always due to poor collimation. I would recommend buying Celestron's collimation tool (not laser collimator), and then fine tuning the mirrors doing star collimation. Once you do this, images will be crystal clear. A lot of people will also recommend upgrading the eyepieces first, and I would agree with this. I bought Svbony's 40mm Plossl eyepiece,15mm UW eyepiece, and 2x Barlow and the visuals they provide are infinitely better than the stock eyepieces. While the telescope and mount itself are good, the eyepieces it comes with are of pretty low quality. The 20mm one is okay, but the 4mm produces very blurry images. This is because the 4mm produces a 250x magnification with this telescope, which is already pushing its limits (also read about how to calculate magnifications so you can decide which eyepieces to get). The 3x barlow is okay as well when paired with the 20 mm eyepiece. If you dedicate time and love to this telescope, you will get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I attached a video of the moon, and pictures of the sun (always use a proper solar filter for this), Andromeda galaxy, Saturn, and the Orion Nebula, all taken with my smartphone through this telescope. Bear in mind that smartphone pictures will never look as good as the real image seen with your own eyes.

I like this scope just fine and the price is good compared to others, but there are some issues. I was able to get some sweet pictures of the Moon and I even got some sweet views of Saturn (digitally zoomed from video screen shot) which is the reason I bought the telescope in the first place. That is where the good stuff ends The problems are as follows. The low cost is translated first into the tripod. It is very flimsy and wobbly. This means that once polar aligned you may have to realign several times because tripod flexes (I got the best results with legs all of the way short and taping between them to keep them from flexing (See Picture) The next cheap part is the EQ mount where there is some play. I tightened the joint bolts and that helped some. The real problem with this scope is that Focal Length is incorrect. This telescope is advertised and labeled as 127mm primary mirror with a 1000 mm focal length. That would make this scope an F/8 scope. Very standard spec, but sadly not true. The focal length of this scope is 445mm making it a very fast f/3.5. that is great for the size and weight of the tube. (this tube is 440mm long. It would be nearly 1 meter for a f/8). The challenge with this mirror is that you don't get the magnification that you expect from this scope. The scope is advertised as 50x magnification with the 20mm eyepiece and 250x magnification with the 4mm eyepiece. The actual magnification is 22x for the 20mm lens and 111x for the 4mm lens. I have added below some figures of the expected view of Saturn (green circle) vs the actual view (Red circle) with a 2x Barlow lens (bought separately). kind of disappointing really That brings me to the last Item. The lenses supplied with this telescope are not very high quality. (Again. I get what I pay for) the Barlow lens especially is poor quality. A good Barlow has multiple lenses that are coated. This one only has one lens and reduces the light a lot.

This telescope is being sold as a great scope for beginners with very easy set up. It is neither of those things. I have been trying for a couple of months to collimate this telescope and nothing appears to work. Yes, I removed the lens from the focuser and used a laser collimator to align the mirrors. Images remain blurry no matter which eyepiece I use. Yes, I made sure the laser collimator was properly aligned before starting. There is a long and informative post on this site that explains in great detail how to collimate this telescope. None of the procedures outlined worked for me. If you decide to buy this telescope despite what I have written here then I wish you the best of luck with it. Update 01/01/17: I am slowly getting this scope into alignment. If you're new to Newtonian telescopes and you're going to insist on buying one of these I urge you to get a collimation tool. I bought a laser, but I probably would have been better off with a Cheshire. You cannot be afraid to take this telescope apart, because you will be doing it a lot before you actually get to the point where you can take it outside and see things. It is a time consuming process because the nuts are not welded to the large tube. The first thing you need to do before proceeding is take out the lens at the bottom of the focuser. You can do this by extending the focuser all the way out and removing the three screws holding it to the tube being careful not to drop the nuts. After removing the lens reinstall the focuser and retract it until it hits the stop. If your telescope was like mine, you will notice that the small secondary mirror is WAY forward toward the primary mirror instead of centered on the focuser. At this point on page 26 of the instruction manual it will tell you "DO NOT loosen or tighten the center screw in the secondary mirror support". Ignore this instruction. Move the mirror back toward the spider (or forward away from the spider if your mirror is out of alignment in that direction) until the secondary mirror looks round and is centered below the focuser. You will have to loosen and tighten all four screws to accomplish this task. This is the point where helpful people on the internet, particularly two guys in Australia on YouTube, were a huge help. As I said, I bought a laser collimator. What you need to do is remove the spider (this holds the secondary mirror) and then remove the primary mirror, being careful not to touch or drop the mirror. I found the primary mirror to be mounted very close to the center (I was eyeballing it, but still). There are four holes for the screws that hold the mirror mount to the tube. They appeared to be equidistant from one another (again, eyeballing it), so I got some string and tied two pieces across the opposite holes. I then took a felt tip marker and placed a dot where the two strings intersected. Then I removed the strings and placed a plastic adhesive paper hole reinforcer on the mirror making sure to place the marker dot in the center of the hole reinforcer. Trust me, you won't see any of this stuff when you get ready to look at the heavens. I then used the adjustment screws on the mirror holder to snug it down to the rubber spacers on the mount. When you're done, the locking screws will stick out. Now put everything back together. Isn't this fun? Remember, this telescope is being marketed to first time users looking to get into astronomy, hence the reason my rating is still and will always be one star. Here is where the collimation laser comes in. I had attempted several times to collimate this telescope without that little paper hole reinforcer I told you to put on the primary mirror, because I didn't know it was supposed to be there or how helpful it would be to have it there. After making sure the laser collimator was true (easy, and luckily it came from the factory not needing adjustment which is probably the only break I got in this process) install it in the focuser with the target area facing the back of the telescope toward the primary mirror and turn it on. I used setting 3 on mine, which allowed me to see the laser clearly in the primary mirror. BEFORE you look down the tube looking for the beam on the primary mirror, stand to one side and move your hand over the opening of the telescope. If you see a red dot on your hand be EXTREMELY careful looking down into the tube. The spot where you see the dot is the dangerous place, so definitely don't look there. Your next task is to move the three screws on the secondary mirror to move the laser beam to the center of that paper hole reinforcer. Get it as close as possible. Next, move to the back of the scope and loosen the three lock screws on the primary mirror. Then move the three adjustment screws (good tip here from someone else on the internet: adjust these screws by TIGHTENING them. Loosen them only if you really have to) to center the laser beam on the target of the laser collimator. When you have finished this task you're done, right? Nope. Look down the front of the tube again and see if that beam is still centered in the primary mirror. It wasn't for me and I had to adjust the secondary a second time and then readjust the primary again. Then it was centered. So now you're done because lasers are really accurate, right? Nope, but you are a lot closer than I was the first few times I tried my hand at collimation. Next, take the focuser back out, replace the lens you removed, and reinstall the focuser. Now you have to take the scope outside and aim it at a star. Use an 8 mm eyepiece, or use a combination of Barlow and eyepiece to get close to 8 mm. The manual will tell you to find Polaris and center it in your eyepiece. Why? Because Polaris appears stationary to a ground observer looking through a telescope. All of the other stars appear to "move" (actually, you're the one moving along with the surface of the earth as it rotates on its axis, but most people don't care about the physics - for them the stars move). The problem with Polaris is that in light polluted skies it can look pretty dim, and where I am in Afghanistan (Kabul) that is a real problem along with all of the dust and smoke in the air. So I picked a brighter star which complicates things because of the apparent motion, but allows you to easily see what it is you are supposed to be looking for next so for me it was worth the extra effort involved. In any case, center the star you picked in the eyepiece (this won't last long if not Polaris - see what I mean by "extra effort?) and defocus until you see a circular glob of concentric circles. They probably won't be concentric yet which is what you're going to fix next, but if they are, stop because you're done. Something worth noting here: allow your telescope to cool down (or heat up) to the outside ambient temperature before looking at the glob or attempting further collimation. You're wasting your time if you don't follow this step. Now go to the back of the telescope and loosen the lock screws. Making sure the star you picked is still centered in your eyepiece move the adjustment screws until the circles on that glob of light are concentric. As you adjust a screw the star will move away from the center of the eyepiece. Make ONE small adjustment and then recenter the star in your eyepiece before making another. Remember to try make adjustments by TIGHTENING screws as opposed to loosening them. Another hint: looking on the glob, when the circles are not concentric you will see widening spaces to one side. Adjust the mirror in that direction then recenter in the eyepiece. Take your time doing this. Not getting it right is not an option if you want to use this telescope and it will take time unless you are naturally good at this sort of thing. I'm not, it take me quite a few hours over a couple of nights to get it OK and I still have some work to do on it. All of my detrimental comments aside, I am enjoying learning about and using this telescope. Would I recommend it to a beginner like me? Absolutely not! If you are a beginner and want to look at things "out of the box" get yourself a refractor and spend as much as you can afford on it. Believe it or not, I had a lot more fun with the Celestron 70 mm travel scope than I had with all the headaches I've gone through with this one. Easier to use, easier to maintain, no collimation required. I did have to upgrade the tripod and add a small finely adjustable tilt thingy to get around the pain of pointing it at what I wanted to see and keeping it pointed there, and that cost more than the telescope itself but it was worth every penny. Is this telescope better than the travel telescope? Hands down, once you get it at least somewhat collimated as mine is now, but it is a huge learning curve!

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! :)

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.