AstroMaster 102AZ

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!

I bought both the 50AZ and 70AZ and they are worlds apart! The 70AZ has a very useable tripod and the Eyepieces are of good enough quality for starters. Obviously using more expensive/better quality eyepieces will improve performance. my only gripe with the telescope i recieved was some of the polystyrene packaging(a few specks) had got inside the tube either during packing or delivery. i shook them out without much dificulty. Performance wise the telescope is good, the red dot finder is reasonably easy to set up, but when looking at objects overhead you have to get right under it which needs some contortions at times. i would recommend this scope to starters, it's light weight and reasonable construction make it worth the £65.00 spent. The 50AZ was £40 cheaper but absolutely useless, i wrote a review about it, but in summary i was deeply saddened by celestrons decision to let the 50AZ be marketed under their name. especially as their other products of 60mm and upwards are all good budget kit. Dont believe all you may read on other sites telling you that you need a big reflector telescope to see anything. these long focal length refractors are virtually CA free (chromatic aberation) and give good views for beginners. the whole myth of poor optics on small refractors comes from cheap telescopes like the 50AZ and other toyshop telescopes.

It's a guaranteed level of quality. My first telescope was a Greenkat, had it at 10 years old (1980). It was nearly as good as this one for magnification. However this Celestron has a lot of play in all gimbles and moving parts. My Greenkat was solid and smooth, all metal parts on a small 1 foot tripod. The red dot pointer again has play, it shakes and sticks, good as a guide only. Do not expect radar missile weaponry accuracy, more toy like if you ask me. God knows what the other China imports are like as this is a known brand. Its simple and easy to set up and you can see a lot. But my old Greenkat from 'Boots' did nearly as good a job and was super solid. All the space pictures and headlines on the box are indeed there to impress. It has lost a star (reviewwise) because sadly the UK made better telescopes 45 years ago for a lot less money. I wonder why I paid 130 pounds more, maybe the others are junk or Celestron is overrated and overpriced, one of these facts must be true.

I got this telescope for my birthday as I have always been interested in astronomy, however, we had a cheap supermarket telescope when I was younger, which put my parents and me off from telescopes at the time. This AstroMaster Refractor is a great starter telescope in my opinion mainly because of it's ease of use. However, I would say that it is most suited for looking at the moon. I saw Jupiter and it's four moons, which was a great experience, however, it is quite difficult to keep track of Jupiter given it's movement across the nightsky and the telescope's handle. I also had difficulties using the finder scope, but that is mainly due to me being as good as blind ;). I would recommend using free mobile apps like SkyView Lite. These are great tools to find your way around the nightsky. Overall, this telescope is great. It is durable and of good quality, but most importantly it is a lot of fun using it to look at the stars. Highly recommended!

Brilliant

I am a complete beginner and found this telescope easy to put together and to use. It was very reasonably priced compared to others in the same range area. I cannot comment on its technical side very much but can say that its opened up the heavens to me and I'm sure it won't be long before I'll be adding to it with further accessories.

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.....

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.

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

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