Plus, it comes with 45x and 90x magnification due to its great included eyepieces. Celestron telescopes can range in price from under $50 to well over $2000. Simple to use and focus. If you’re patient and willing to invest in a better tripod, you can get good use out of this scope. Lightweight and easily portable. Dobsonian: This is usually used with reflector telescopes and is designed for tabletop use. If you’re looking for a telescope with good performance, but a price tag that won’t cause heart attacks, the Celestron NexStar 4 SE Telescope may be the right choice. Tripod is sturdy and built to last. © Copyright 2020 Optics Mag. These are the two primary types of telescopes, and they do vary quite a bit from each other. These databases range from a few thousand objects up to 40,000 or more, and once a GoTo is aligned, it will find and track these stored planets, individual stars, and even whole galaxies. Celestron focal lengths can vary considerably, ranging from about 360-millimeters to 1,250-millimeters. The $500 to $2,000 range is home to some of Celestron’s most popular telescopes, including a number of GoTo telescopes that offer extensive databases and larger apertures. Consider this model if you're looking for a simple telescope that you can just point and view without having to bother too much with focusing. This activity is popular enough to have its own name — astrophotography — and while difficult to master, it can be a rewarding element of your telescope experience. These can help you easily find celestial objects and learn about them. Please take our 3-minute survey, The app Celestron provides is prone to freezing and crashing, which makes using this telescope a pain. These are maintenance-free and great for beginners, but they can be expensive if you want a larger telescope. The one downside is that it’s heavy, weighing 92 pounds between the telescope and the mount. Nowadays, Robert is dedicated to helping others find the right optics for their needs. Some Celestron telescopes ship with finderscopes, but you can also buy them separately. It also includes a 9×50 finderscope, which is as powerful on its own as some full telescopes. Capable of collecting and magnifying light, a decent telescope can be a passport to visit everything from the craters of the moon and the rings of Saturn to the dim flickering of distant galaxies. While expensive, Celestron also sells a variety of astrograph telescopes that will yield better results than using a DSLR with an adapter. Our #1 pick for the best Celestron telescope is the Celestron NexStar 8SE (in fact, the entire Celestron NexStar SE family). It can be difficult to lock the telescope into place on the tripod. Our reviews are designed to cover each scope in detail so you can figure out which one will give you a great experience. It will also run you more in terms of price. These telescopes include astrograph telescopes and larger than 8-inch-aperture GoTo telescopes. They make good telescopes. The Celestron astromaster 80AZS refractor telescope is a user-friendly and powerful … Fully automated telescope with database of over 40,000 celestial objects. Overall, it’s okay, but most experts and beginners will find that it doesn’t meet their needs. Any tripod you go with should be long-lasting and stable enough to protect the telescope from tipping over and keep it in a fixed position for image clarity. These let you see at 26x and 72x magnification, respectively, so you’ll be able to make the most of your telescope with the included eyepieces. There’s a large, four-inch aperture, which isn’t anywhere near as large as the top selection on our list, but that’s more of a testament to how large that one is. Up to 250x magnification. The Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ Telescope has the potential to be one of the best that an amateur ever owns. The BestReviews editorial team researches hundreds of products based on consumer reviews, brand quality, and value. It’s important to know what you want a telescope to do and how much you should be paying for the features you need. Celestron offers a variety of GoTo telescopes, which are generally more expensive. The image quality probably won't satisfy experienced stargazers. These are the products we considered that ultimately didn't make our top 5. SkyPortal can also be used with your smartphone to control some telescopes. If you need to manually enter your GPS coordinates in your Celestron hand controller, you can use a map app on your smartphone to quickly grab coordinates. We also compared Celestron telescopes to Meade telescopes in this article. We then choose a shorter list for in-depth research and testing before finalizing our top picks. The app’s poor performance and overall low-quality parts mean that few people will enjoy using it. Alt-azimuth: This is one of the simplest mounts, and it may be manual or computerized. No-tool setup. Users have said the tripod isn't very sturdy and may tip over on a windy night. While it is often more affordable to purchase a Celestron telescope that includes a finderscope, some of their separately sold finderscopes are fairly low-priced. This determines how the telescope moves. The majority are battery-operated, although some have AC or even car adapter options. These telescopes won’t provide you with a ton of image clarity for close-up views of the outer planets, but you will still be able to manually find stars and observe a variety of moon features, planets, and other celestial objects. If you are seeking to expand your telescope, Celeston sells a wide variety of accessories for their various telescopes, from single eyepieces all the way up to cleaning and multi-piece accessory kits. A manual telescope requires no alignment and should be easy enough to use for all ages. Good image quality for the price range. A. It has a very large 114-millimeter aperture, so you can get great detail that smaller telescopes just can’t match. Astronomy software with celestial object database included. While this is not standard with all telescopes, some Celestron telescopes do ship with a Barlow lens. It also has some cheap parts that don’t seem up to the standards found on other Celestron products. 10 Best Trail Cameras in 2020 – Reviews & Top Picks, 10 Best Binoculars in 2020 – Reviews & Top Picks, 10 Best Rifle Scopes under $200 of 2020 – Reviews & Top Picks, 5 Best Vortex Spotting Scopes of 2020 – Reviews & Top Picks. Longer focus eyepieces are generally easier to use for those who wear eyeglasses. In practice, that means it burns through batteries at an alarming rate. Comes with a finderscope and two different eyepieces. Get exclusive content, advice, and tips from BestReviews. Up to 480x magnification. Includes a 10mm and 20mm eyepiece. Something else to consider is that 70 millimeters is fairly small as far as telescopes go. Get exclusive content, advice, and tips from BestReviews delivered to your inbox. However, it has some of the problems that tend to come with low-priced telescopes. Capable of collecting and magnifying light, a decent telescope can be a passport to visit everything from the craters of the moon and the rings of Saturn to the dim flickering of distant galaxies. Large 8-inch aperture and crisp images. Overall, this model represents a cool concept, but it’s likely to leave people frustrated. That’s only the first of its major problems. Its big selling feature is that it comes with a wi-fi card, so you can connect it to your home network or to a cellphone, and control it through your smartphone. Do these telescopes ship with software of any kind? Registering is important if you ever need to take advantage of Celestron’s warranty, and it will also keep you up-to-date on any product updates. The mount is the device that sits between the telescope and the tripod. At under $50, you are usually limited to PowerSeeker telescopes. Also included is a Barlow lens, which triples the magnification provided by the telescope and the eyepiece you use. Otherwise, the image will be blurry. It has a 70-millimeter lens, which isn’t massive, but it’s still respectable. While you may think that a company like that would have nothing for beginners, Celestron makes a wide range of telescopes for different budgets and ability levels. Heavier telescopes can also be sturdier, however, which will almost always improve image quality. This guide will introduce you to some of the terms and features you should be concentrating on when shopping for a Celestron telescope. A refractor telescope uses lenses instead of mirrors and is a better choice for viewing the moon and planets. Its design also lends it a phenomenal 1000-millimeter focus length, which is far longer than most consumer telescopes, and means you have a high theoretical maximum magnification. It has a shaky tripod, which means you have to be gentle when focusing. The longer the focal length, the better the telescope generally is at viewing close-up images of planets or the moon. That means there’s probably a great option for anyone. This is the distance between the primary lens of the telescope and the point where light rays come into focus. Another factor of telescopes to consider is the focal length. GoTo telescopes are motorized, often depending on a database of celestial objects that the telescope will access for you. There’s a 114-millimeter aperture, which is fairly large for the price. The included 2x Barlow lens is a nice touch, increasing what you can do with this telescope and its eyepieces without driving the price up too much.