Celestron 31045 AstroMaster 130 EQ Reflector Telescope

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by: Super Movie Fan Man (East Coast)
on: Sunday, 26-September-2010

Well, I spent allot of time researching a good beginner scope for myself and my family and after much deliberation I chose the Celestron Astromaster 130EQ. I think I need to look a bit more.

Pros:

1. Price: Very affordable, I got mine on sale for $213.
2. Optics: Very good and clear for this price point.
3. Appearance: Very cool looking scope, impressive.

Cons: (PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!!!!, Im Not Kidding)

1. Mount: Ummm, Check Please! The German Equatorial mount supplied might as well be a solid block of steel, that would be about as easy to adjust and MUCH more stable, unacceptable. The Latitude adjustment screw requires gloves if you dont want permanent indentations in your fingers. Mine would actually make the whole scope jerk sideways when you would engage it, its a heavy scope and allot of the weight is exerted on this adjustment, even if you balance the scope correctly. The Declination adjustment was stiff and would not track smoothly...and forget turning the scope....see a trend here?
2. Tripod: Solid Steel construction.....Solid??? Ill put it this way, Steel is a solid, so is Silly Putty. As long as you DO NOT plan to fully extend the tripod legs and view it upright its more stable than Silly Putty. But if you want to stand as you view the sky (most adults would prefer that to bending over like youre talking to a 2 year old) once the legs are fully extended it just adds to the shakiness. Brother!
3. Focus: Are you good at Estimating? Youll have to be to focus this thing; any time you even touch this thing (or breathe on it) the objects in the eyepiece do their best 7.5 earthquake impersonation. Once you wait a day or so, it stops shaking.....Now....DONT TOUCH IT! VERY Frustrating, by the time I got Jupiter and its moons in focus it had practically moved out of view. But Jupiter was VERY cool to see.

The Viewfinder has been trashed by allot of people for being inaccurate and basically useless, maybe I lucked out because mine actually worked well. Too bad the rest of the scope didnt.

So there it is, its a really great scope crippled by a cheap mount and tripod. At this price point its a good Kids Scope and for adults who are not too picky about trivial things like being able to focus and see what youre looking at clearly.

Im returning mine and going back on the Good Scope Hunt, BTW your site does not pay for return shipping on this item, I had a $25 gift certificate that I used to get my purchase price down to $188, kiss that goodbye, return shipping was $28.

Oh well, live and learn...and return.

by: Super Movie Fan Man (East Coast)
on: Sunday, 26-September-2010

Well, I spent allot of time researching a good beginner scope for myself and my family and after much deliberation I chose the Celestron Astromaster 130EQ. I think I need to look a bit more.

Pros:

1. Price: Very affordable, I got mine on sale for $213.
2. Optics: Very good and clear for this price point.
3. Appearance: Very cool looking scope, impressive.

Cons: (PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!!!!, Im Not Kidding)

1. Mount: Ummm, Check Please! The German Equatorial mount supplied might as well be a solid block of steel, that would be about as easy to adjust and MUCH more stable, unacceptable. The Latitude adjustment screw requires gloves if you dont want permanent indentations in your fingers. Mine would actually make the whole scope jerk sideways when you would engage it, its a heavy scope and allot of the weight is exerted on this adjustment, even if you balance the scope correctly. The Declination adjustment was stiff and would not track smoothly...and forget turning the scope....see a trend here?
2. Tripod: Solid Steel construction.....Solid??? Ill put it this way, Steel is a solid, so is Silly Putty. As long as you DO NOT plan to fully extend the tripod legs and view it upright its more stable than Silly Putty. But if you want to stand as you view the sky (most adults would prefer that to bending over like youre talking to a 2 year old) once the legs are fully extended it just adds to the shakiness. Brother!
3. Focus: Are you good at Estimating? Youll have to be to focus this thing; any time you even touch this thing (or breathe on it) the objects in the eyepiece do their best 7.5 earthquake impersonation. Once you wait a day or so, it stops shaking.....Now....DONT TOUCH IT! VERY Frustrating, by the time I got Jupiter and its moons in focus it had practically moved out of view. But Jupiter was VERY cool to see.

The Viewfinder has been trashed by allot of people for being inaccurate and basically useless, maybe I lucked out because mine actually worked well. Too bad the rest of the scope didnt.

So there it is, its a really great scope crippled by a cheap mount and tripod. At this price point its a good Kids Scope and for adults who are not too picky about trivial things like being able to focus and see what youre looking at clearly.

Im returning mine and going back on the Good Scope Hunt, BTW your site does not pay for return shipping on this item, I had a $25 gift certificate that I used to get my purchase price down to $188, kiss that goodbye, return shipping was $28.

Oh well, live and learn...and return.

by: Jacob M. Kroon (Minnesota)
on: Thursday, 26-August-2010

The star finder is a joke. It will be by luck alone that you are able to find distant objects. It needs a much more finely tuned focuser as well, it is impossible to focus on more distant objects and see any detail at all. I have gotten many good views of the moon, but the planets and other objects are too blurry to see any detail at all. I purchaced high quality lenses, which help, however they are too much for the scope and were more for a higher quality telescope. With a ton of patience, and keeping your expectations in check, this can be a decent scope. The motor mount (optional) is a must to keep track of objects. It is way hard to manually track, keep focus, and enjoy planets and smaller objects.

by: E. Kittrell (Williamsburg, VA)
on: Thursday, 15-April-2010

Let me say right from the start that you must set up some parameters or boundaries to work within when shopping and comparing performance, features, etc. When I was shopping around I kept asking myself what if a spend a little more, over and over. By the end of my browsing session Im seriously considering a 16 light bridge truss dobsonian. So heres the highlights.

1. Looks. I think youll be hard pressed to find anything in this price range that looks more the part. I really like the orange annodized alum. bits & pieces. They really pop against the metallic blue optical tube. To me this thing looks like more scope than it really is.
2. Apeture. 130mm is about as big as youll find at this price point. Apeture is everything. The more the merrier. Do not get caught up in the magnification hype that is very common in department store telescopes. As a matter of fact this scope does not have very high power as supplied. With its reletively short focal length, youll need a barlow lens to get some big mag. numbers.
3. Mount. Since I come from a cheap department store scope background, this is the best mount Ive owned. Now that said, it is still very light, and there are plastic bits on the telescoping legs that will break if you get over assertive when tightening fittings. To a serious amature astronomer this thing is probably shakier than a Chihuahua at the north pole. The tripod probably is the weakest link in the package. THe legs are steel, but of the shower curtain rod wieght, not electrical conduit weight. Its probably the best place for them to skimp, in my opinion. There are tricks to make a mount more stable, but most of us dont want to grind our own optics at home. If you keep your hands off the scope while observing, its more than stable enough for some good viewing. It will take some time for it to settle down after focusing, but thats what we have to deal whith at this price point.
4. Optics. They seem pretty good. I get sharp points when viewing stars. Ive found nebulae for myself for the first time with this scope. Its small and light enough to grab and go, which is how I use it so far. The viewfinder is on the weak side. Its a red dot finder with no magnification. Thats not the bad part. Its that they used plastic lenses that definately eat some of the light passing through, and also seem to illuminate a slight bit when the red dot is on. Combined with the positions you may have to contort yourself in when viewing objects near azimuth, its my least liked feature on this scope.
5. Overall you get good apeture and optics for the money, its nice enough looking to leave set up in a corner. You get an equatorial mount that can be motor upgraded cheaply. Im happy with my purchase, and Ive since spent more money on eye pieces and accesories than I originally spent on the scope itself.

by: David T. (Barquisimeto, Lara VENEZUELA)
on: Saturday, 3-April-2010

Already I have had opportunity to do a few tests of this telescope and can comment to them that the image is excellent.
The construction and the design is robust enough.
Only I found two negative details of design.

First the screw that is used for adjustment of this latitude evil designed.
When one increases the latitude due to the weight of the this assembly it becomes hard to manipulate and when one tries to diminish the latitude, that is to say to slacken the screw in order that the set goes down, the plastic piece separates of the metallic screw turning out to be very inconvinient to do that the assembly goes down almost to the point of remaining united.

I come second, the unions of the tripod of stainless steel to the assembly are plastic, these should be metallurgies to give him better permanence in the time.


A recommendation for CELESTRON, they must improve the protection of the packing of the Mount CG3, it(he) is not alone to put it in a box without any protection, this one should come protected by rubber(gum), to avoid what happened to me, that in the sending(parcel) and due to the weight of the mount, the mount I strike and there was doubled the screw of Slow Movement in DEC.

Lamentably I cannot do claim for guarantee since I am in Venezuela, and the costs of movement going and return of the equipment(team) they be be very high in comparison with the cost of the Telescope. I do not still have mas remedy that to try to repair the piece.

David Trujillo P.
Barquisimeto, Edo. Lara
Venezuela



Español.

Ya he tenido oportunidad de hacer unas pruebas de este telescopio y les puedo comentar que la imagen es excelente.
La construcción y el diseño es bastante robusta.

Solo encontré dos detalles negativos de diseño.


Primero el tornillo que se usa para ajuste de latitud esta mal diseñado.

Cuando uno incrementa la latitud debido al peso del montaje este se torna duro para manipular y cuando uno intenta disminuir la latitud, es decir aflojar el tornillo para que el conjunto baje, la pieza plástica se separa del tornillo metálico resultando muy incomodo hacer que el montaje baje casi al punto de quedarse trabado.


Segundo, las uniones del trípode de acero inoxidable al montaje son plásticas, estas deberían ser metálicas para darle mejor durabilidad en el tiempo.


Una recomendación para CELESTRON, deben mejorar la proteccion del empaque de la Montura CG3, no es solo ponerlo en una caja sin ninguna protección, este debería venir protegido por goma, para evitar lo que me pasó, que en el envío y debido al peso de la montura, la montura se golpeo y se dobló el tornillo de Movimiento Lento en DEC.


Lamentablemente no puedo hacer reclamo por garantía ya que me encuentro en Venezuela, y los costos de traslado ida y vuelta del equipo serían muy altos en comparación con el costo del Telescopio. No me queda mas remedio que tratar de reparar la pieza.


David Trujillo P.
Barquisimeto, Edo. Lara
Venezuela

by: AnObservation (Florida, USA)
on: Sunday, 28-March-2010

We found it difficult to use and tough to keep on objects once we were able to finally find them. The image magnification isnt significant enough to make great observations. Views of the moon were interesting.

by: A. Tomlinson (Carbondale, IL USA)
on: Thursday, 11-February-2010

I gave this telescope to my fiance for Christmas and he loves it. He never had a telescope before, but he was able to find things with it still, so it was beginner friendly. Overall, if your looking for a telescope for a beginners, that is also high quality, this is a great choice!

by: CP (New York, NY)
on: Thursday, 21-January-2010

I gave this telescope as a gift for someone who has never had a telescope before and she absolutely loves it. In addition, standard shipping from Adorama was extremely fast--I ordered the telescope 4 days before Christmas and it arrived the 23rd. I was very impressed.

by: Sricharan Vemuri (United States)
on: Monday, 14-December-2009

I bought this scope recently a month ago. I am really impressed by the quality of the scope. The viewing is easy and really good. The magnification is pretty good. I looked at moon and pretty impressed. The best part is you can purchase other eye pieces which I strongly recommend at a very decent price.

I would recommend buying a powerful eyepiece which you can get for approx $75 if you are planning on getting serious.

by: Anthony J. Day (Albany, OR)
on: Thursday, 18-June-2009

This was my first telescope. Let me just say that Im very impressed with what I see. On my first night out with it I was able to see Jupiter and some of its moons. I was able to make out the red and white bands of clouds too!! It wasnt huge in the eyepiece, but hey, were not using the Hubble Telescope here. I even got a good look at Saturn as well. Saturn was literally this big -0- and that was with a 9mm eye piece.

Now, I bought the accessory kit and I highly recommend getting it with this scope. I love the 32mm eyepiece for great eye relief and the 2x barlow even better. Dont plan on using the 4mm for anything but the moon and even then its a little too much for this telescope.

The spotting scope on the top of this thing is a joke. I took mine off. I just start with the 32mm lens aim at what i want to look at, and then start stepping the lenses down.

All in all, I would recommend this as a good starter scope. Just point and enjoy. Who needs motor driven gps mounts that take forever to set up.

by: Justin L. Schlichenmayer (Bethune,CO USA)
on: Saturday, 20-September-2008

The optical quality is quite good, with a good field of view and very limited spider effect. The star pointer is fair to poor however if used with a low power lens (25mm or larger) it will suffice. Barlow usage is excellent and Im amazed at lunar observation. Only other gripe is when slewing at a low polar angle you can run into the knobs. Mount seems solid however I dont care for the dec. setup. The focuser could stand a little more travel but is adequate for this scopes capability. Overall I give it 5 stars for lunar and terrestrial use, four and a half for planetary (excellent on Jupiter and Venus, struggles with Neptune and Uranus) but with some filters I hope to improve that. Deep sky is fair. The star finder I give a one.