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

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

Regular price: €469,00
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Description

Perfect entry-level telescope: The Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ is an easy-to-use and powerful telescope. The PowerSeeker series is designed to give the new telescope user the perfect combination of quality, value, features, and power
Manual German equatorial mount: Navigate the sky with our Newtonian Reflector telescope. It features a German Equatorial mount with a slow-motion altitude rod for smooth and accurate pointing. Adjust rod to desired position, then easily secure by tightening cross knob
Compact and portable: This telescope for adults and kids to be used together is compact, lightweight, and portable. Take the telescope to your favorite campsite or dark sky observing site, or simply the backyard. Optical Coatings: Aluminum
Multiple accessories: The Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ Telescope comes with 2 eyepieces (20mm and 4mm), plus a 3x Barlow lens to triple the power of each. Users can also download BONUS Starry Night Astronomy Software Package
Unbeatable and customer support: Buy with confidence from the telescope brand, based in California since 1960. Youll also receive a 2-year and unlimited access to technical support from our team of US-based experts

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Customer Reviews

MUCH BETTER SCOPES OUT THERE it was a great scope for the first 10 days i had it i saw the moon jupiter and saturn with great detail! and even some bright stars in the light polluted city i lived in. until the 11th day when i realized that the telescope was finally out of collimation. the collimation process is an absolute nightmare and i still cant manage to collimate it. and it doesnt have a center mark for collimation and u cant remove the mirror without screwing up the tube please dont ever buy this as your beginner scope and to add insult to injury i live near the equator the equatorial mount is basically useless where i live because i cant even polar align the damn thing i should have just spent a few more dollars and bought a dobsonian.(119 usd plus 82 dollar shipping) = 201 usd lesson for meNOTE dont even buy bird jones type reflectors that use spherical mirrors and a lens in the focuser tube. buy parabolic reflectors there are much much easier to use 1REACH FOR THE STARS!! 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/B0007UQNV8I 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/B00009X3UVI 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! :) 5Great Scope!!! 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 planet4) 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 sense5) 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. 5This telescope is being sold as a great scope for beginners with very easy set up 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! 1The quality just wasn't up to par. It was not nearly as good as we hoped for so we sent it back before we got stuck with it. Everything was included and the assembly went pretty well. It seemed to be aligned OK because I was able to see the moon. But that was about all. Everything else just looked like a bigger dot. I did not see any rings on Saturn or any detail on any other planets. The good reviews that I read all come with long complicated instructions, explanations and a bunch of other lenses, collimator tools, optional eq, modifications and things to make to make it work the way it's advertised. It was really shaky. The screws liked to loosen up. The adjustment cables worked sometimes then sometimes not- it would get stuck when trying to look for something. The finder was useless as it could not keep it's position at all. Very cheap! So it always took 15-20 minutes to point it to anything so you can see it in the viewer. It is a neck breaker. I guess I was lucky because it was already focused pretty well. Like I said, we saw the moon OK. But wasn't powerful enough to see anything else even with the special lens. Maybe we could have worked with it like some other people do, but it just didn't have that ring of quality to it. And if I do have to take it apart and align or clean anything it sounds like a real pain and could possibly ruin something trying to do it. Then what? I expected it to be a little more "user friendly" so we sent it back while we could. Maybe we'll have to pay a little more to get something better. 2This is a great telescope for the price This is a great telescope for the price, you probably won't find much better than this. First off, I would recommend losing the finder scope that comes with this, and get a red dot finder, you will save yourself much frustration. I picked up a Gosky red dot finder for pretty cheap and aligned it with the telescope pretty easily and it works so much better. I also picked up a collimation eyepiece as well to help out with getting this properly collimated, it took a little bit of patience but after doing so it made a drastic difference in focus and clarity. Most importantly, be patient and take the time to learn how to use it if you have never used an EQ mount before. I had not, but I took the time to watch videos and read instructions before the telescope got here and it helped drastically. Still took some time to get familiar with it but once you've got it figured out it is quite simple to use. Take the time to figure out how to properly balance with the counterweight as well, and you will save yourself much headache. That is a very important step and you will be frustrated if you do not properly balance it first. The mount is a bit shaky when using the higher power lenses, but after all this is not a super expensive telescope. If that is important to you, I would recommend forking over more money to get either a power drive for your mount, or just buying a more expensive mount that will probably be significantly more expensive. I am very much an amateur at this and don't use it every day, so this setup is perfect for me without having to spend too much money on a highly expensive setup. I was able to see the moon quite easily, I usually start out the evening by finding the moon first and focusing in on it to get things situated and lined up, then move on to other points in sky. I was able to see Jupiter and its moons quite clearly, as well as Saturn and was able to make out the rings which was breathtaking. For something like that, make sure you get familiar with using the knobs to make small adjustments, keep in mind all points in the sky are constantly moving from our point of view, so as soon as you are centered and focused on something you will have to continually adjust to keep up with the moving object in sky. Overall, I have had a blast with this telescope and would very highly recommend it for the price. If you are not a novice at this, you will probably want to buy something more expensive, but for me this was absolutely perfect and I love it! 5then the views are pretty good for the price you pay You definitely will need some patience to use this scope. The collimation process on this scope is a nightmare. The instruction manual is weak in this regard and Celestron really should update it to help getting this telescope aligned. This is a bird-jones type reflector. Do your research on this before purchase. If you visit various astronomy forums and ask about this scope, most people will tell you to avoid it because of the time you will be spending collimating it.After you spent time collimating it, then the views are pretty good for the price you pay. Not great, but you get what you pay for. I could see the 2 main bands on Jupiter and the moons, the rings of Saturn, but struggled to see the Cassini division. The moon looks great. M4 and M13 could also be seen and looked decent.I highly recommend some better eyepieces. The 20mm with the 3x barlow isn't too bad but the 4mm eyepiece was garbage. Maybe I just got a bad one.The tripod and mount is the real weak point here. The slightest breezes will cause shaking. With a good polar alignment, the slo-mo controls will help with tracking your object. This is the benefits with using an EQ mount where you will only need to turn one knob to keep your object in view.The finder scope isn't to great either. It is to easy to bump it and lose alignment with the OTA. The mounting of this finder scope could be better, but it will work.Assembly of this scope was super easy for me. Barely needed the manual to put this together. It is pretty straight forward.I am on the fence about recommending this scope. If you don't have any patience, then no. If you have a cool calm head and willing to take this apart and get things aligned, then for $150 this scope really isn't that bad. Like I said, the views are pretty decent. 3Good for the price, but maybe spend more to avoid Bird-Jones This is a decent telescope for the price, but you probably want the AstroMaster 114EQ for $50 more. Echoing at least one other review, the 127EQ is a Bird-Jones telescope, which means there's a lens at the bottom of the focuser tube that you have to remove to laser collimate it (line up the mirrors). The mounting for the spotting scope is, quite frankly, a joke, leading to it having Storm-Trooper-level bad aim, no matter how often you zero it in. The tripod isn't too bad, but the equatorial mount has a habit of working its locking screws loose, making it hard to use the slow motion knobs. The included plastic-body Barlow stripped out the second night (it's M3, so easy to just re-tap if you have a metric shop). All that aside, Celestron did a great job of getting reasonably good optics down to a super low price. I was after a scope I wouldn't mind abusing in some experimentation, and this is definitely that. But I do regret not reading up more and spending $50 more on the 114EQ. 3Average beginner scope; some flaws can be fixed Let's be clear: much of the feedback on the Internet about how good and how bad this telescope is are wildly overblown. The telescope is somewhat better than the terrible reviews, and quite a bit worse than the glowing ones.There are some fundamental problems with the telescope itself, most of which can be fixed with a quick trip to the hardware and office supply store. One could argue, since they're so easy and cheap to fix, the telescope should probably come with these already.For most of these fixes, you must completely disassemble the telescope. If you do so, be extremely careful not to scratch the objective mirror surface. All of the components are held on with small screws that thread into nuts inside the objective tube, so lay the tube down to prevent a nut from coming loose and falling onto the mirror.1. The primary (objective) mirror does not have a center dot for alignment. This makes it difficult to determine whether the mirror centers are aligned with one another. This can be fixed with a Sharpie and/or one of those little paper "donut" stickers used for reinforcing pages in a binder. Using a compass, draw a circle of the exact size of the objective mirror on a piece of paper. Set it centered on top of the objective mirror (cut little slats for the mirror brackets so the paper lies flat), and use the center hole left from the compass to make a small dot with a Sharpie. Remove the paper and, if desired, position a paper donut sticker so the dot is centered within it. (It will be hidden behind the secondary mirror, so won't affect the view at all.) Total cost: Wal-mart sells a package of 560 donut stickers for $1.65.2. The "springs" on the primary mirror are rubber boots instead of actual springs, which means they do not behave predictably for adjustment. Remove the screws (more on them in a bit) holding the objective mirror base, remove the rubber boots, and replace them with small springs. 1/2" long by 1/4" diameter should work fine; something medium/light duty. Total cost: Home Depot sells a "spring assortment kit" with 84 pieces in a variety of sizes and styles for $4.37.3. The adjustment screws have Phillips heads, which are difficult to see or adjust in the dark, or when you're trying to look through the eyepiece at the same time. You've already removed the screws in the previous step. Get some #10-32 x 1" thumb screws or wing screws. At least, replace the adjustment screws; if you replace the lock screws (optional) use a different head style so you can feel the difference in the dark. Total cost: Home Depot sells #10-32 x 1" wing screws for $1.13, and a pack of 2 thumb screws for approximately the same price.4. The focuser assembly has a great deal of slop in it that makes focus and alignment difficult. There's already a teflon pad in there, but it just isn't enough. I padded it with a few layers of masking tape, just enough to keep it from slopping around but still operating smoothly. Total cost: Wal-mart sells a roll of masking tape for $1.65These are the issues that you can address yourself. There's an additional issue with the design itself, that makes it difficult to adjust.You've probably seen other reviews mention "Bird-Jones" or similar terms. Here's what that means: in order for them to claim that this scope has a focal length of 1000mm, when it's nowhere near a meter long, they have placed a fixed lens in the bottom of the focuser assembly, effectively doubling the focal length. (This is also known as "Barlowing".) This lens introduces a couple of drawbacks:* Because of its location in the focuser tube, many normal ways of collumating (aligning) the optics don't work, or don't work well.* Barlow lenses can introduce chromatic aberration. The more heavily the view is Barlowed, the more aberration is added. The scope comes with a 2x Barlow lens built into it, and separately a 3x lens that you can mount to the focuser. That's a grand total of 5x, which is a lot.With patience you can probably work around this somewhat.Ultimately, I refunded this purchase for none of the reasons listed above. There was a manufacturing defect in the mount, that prevented the mount latitude screw from going above approximately 15 degrees of elevation before it impacted the bottom of the hinge. This damaged the hinge and screw threads. Because of this, it made the entire mount essentially useless for operating in equatorial mode - which rather seems like the whole point of using an equatorial mount. This also prevented me from properly adjusting the lenses for astronomical use, since I could not point the scope at Polaris. After repeated conversations with Celestron support, they gave me three options: repair (no timeframe given), replace the entire scope (with no guarantee that the new one wouldn't have the same issue) or refund. So I chose to refund and pay the difference to go to a different scope brand/model. 2Nice Telescope with a few Mirror Alignment Issues I got this one as a Christmas gift. It seemed like a good telescope for basic astronomy, with many nice features. But I was initially quite disappointed by the fact that the images seemed rather blurry. It took me two weeks to correct this problem, to the point where now I am finally starting to like it.I should add that the telescope had probably traveled a few miles around the globe when it got to me, but the box and packaging were in pretty good shape when it arrived.When I got it, I initially compared it to another $50 reflector, the Celestron 76 mm Discovery, and the results were very disappointing, the smaller one was much sharper. I spent hours reading on the Celestron and other sites on how to adjust collimation with a simple "hole in the cap" and got nowhere. The image was always relatively blurry. Day or night, polaris or no polaris.I later bought the Celestron 24mm to 8mm zoom eyepiece, which allows me to zoom in without changing eyepiece, and it works very well on the smaller 76mm telescope, but again blurry images on this one.After quickly becoming an expert on reflector collimation, I noticed that nothing seemed collimated properly. I guess they don't even try at the factory on this one? I decided to order a Celestron 1.25" collimation eyepiece ($30), which can be useful in aligning the optics (the two mirrors) in reflectors like this one. I tried it out on this one, and got repeatedly confused on what should be seen in what reflection when you adjust this or that. I spent entire afternoons fiddling with secondary versus primary mirror adjustments, achieving virtually nothing as far as improved sharpness is concerned. I did replace the secondary mirror alignment screws with better stainless steel ones that would not strip, they are metric m4.I then tried to collimate this thing on the North Star (Polaris) and that is, for this one, another pure fantasy. The reason is that Polaris is faint, and every time you move a mirror by a tiny bit (as explained in the Celestron instruction) the star just darts out of view in the eyepiece. More frustration and still no luck in getting this thing in focus. Lastly, I ditched all the Celestron recommendations on day and night collimation (using either the celestron collimation eyepiece or the "ring pattern" for out of focus point sources) and did instead the "EYE-DOCTOR TEST" :I wanted to see how sharp I can get this one, when there is no wind, no shake, no atmospherics, no moving planet, no mist etc. So I placed the telescope at one end of a long corridor in my house, and a nice clean printed envelope with some sharp text on it at the other end. With this method (which I seemingly invented, as it is not described anywhere in the instructions nor on the Celestron site) I was finally able to adjust (by very small increments) the three screws on the secondary mirror till I FINALLY got a nice sharp picture of the writing on the letter. Note that this last procedure did NOT require the collimating eyepiece! Just the regular 4mm eyepiece that comes with the telescope. Success!As a by product, I found that in fact in the end all three eyepieces work rather well, down to the 4mm which is a bit faint, the 20mm with the 3X Barlow is better.Now I can finally see the main two stripes on Jupiter and the Orion Nebula with some clarity. In conclusion:Plusses : Potentially sharp optics and large aperture. Reasonable price. Sturdy mounts. Useful eyepieces.Cons: Imo optics needs to be carefully aligned by the method described here. Mine was definitely NOT aligned and, initially, as a result disappointingly blurry.EDIT: After a few more weeks of use (February 2014), I spent some time using the Celestron collimation 1.25" eyepiece ($28 here on Amazon). My conclusion is that it is a very useful, if not essential, tool for this telescope. To avoid any further issues due to my previous messing around, I first screwed in the secondary mirror (by loosening up the three alignment screws, and pulling in the secondary mirror all the way in until it barely touches the mount), and later pulled out the primary mirror as well(by pulling out all six screws until the whole unit comes out, then reinserting the mirror after making sure the secondary was pointing the right way, straight to the back). Then, using the Celestron collimation eyepiece with its crosshair, I carefully adjusted the secondary and primary orientations (three screws for each mirror) until all the crosshairs overlapped perfectly. In other words, the crosshair in the eyepiece has to overlap perfectly with its reflection through mirrors 1 and 2, and back to the eyepiece. This takes time and patience. After having done that, the image quality seems pretty good and rather sharp. I went down to about 8mm, I don't recommend getting lower than that. The best setup for this one is the 20mm eyepiece, either by itself or with the included 3x Barlow (which then gives 20/3 = ca. 7mm). I also got some Ploessel eyepieces, but they will do you no good if the mirrors aren't aligned first.PPS. I found (April 2014) that the best way to collimate this (Bird-Jones or catadioptric design)telescope and get nice sharp images is to remove the focusing lens at the bottom of the focusing tube (takes 10 mins), align the secondary and primary mirrors with an inexpensive LASER collimator (mine is an LK1 $30 from seben dot com, takes another 10 mins to do this part), put the corrector lens back in and reinsert the focusing tube (don't touch the lens with your hands, takes around 5 mins). With this method the results are guaranteed to be reproducible and consistent. The images are then consistently sharp.PPPS. The other day (June 2014)I talked at length to a very nice and helpful person at Celestron technical support (Will?). He suggested to check the following thing. The secondary (smaller, flat) mirror is oval-shape and mounted right under the focusing tube, held in place by three (outside)-plus-one (center) screws. Now put a focusing cap (just an eyepiece cap with a small 1mm hole in the center) at the (top) end of the focusing tube. Then make absolutely sure (after you take again very carefully the correcting lens out of the focusing tube) that the inside of the focusing tube and the secondary mirror, as viewed through the focuser, are perfectly concentric when you view them through the hole in the cap. That is, the secondary mirror has to be perfectly centered when viewed from the top of the focusing tube. Note that the secondary mirror is oval shaped, but will look like a perfect disc when tilted at about 45 degrees. On mine this required several turns on the (secondary) center screw. After this is done, make also sure that the tilt on the secondary mirror is such that you can see the center of the primary mirror (on mine I put a black pen mark at the dead center). Now re-align the secondary and primary mirrors with a laser (in my case), with the cap with a hole, or a cheshire eyepiece. Then put back the correcting lens in the focuser, and you are done. The end result is that on mine it improved the sharpness a bit (I did the eyedoctor test again). I was also able to see more detail on Saturn with a standard 9mm eyepiece, will try taking a few pictures soon.PPPPS: This telescope really shines (due to the light gathering abilities of it's fairly large mirror) when you want to look at fainter objects. Recently we had good viewing conditions and I had a chance to look the the Great Cluster in Hercules (M13), the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Omega Nebula (M17), and two more star clusters in the same general region (M4 and M62). I took some fairly nice pictures of these objects with a Sony HX200 camera (30x zoom) mounted piggyback on the telescope, using the Celestron motor drive for the 127EQ and long 30sec exposures at 800ISO. See the pictures I posted on the right. I was surprised how well the telecope mount, equipped with the Celestron $30 clockdrive, works when taking long exposures.PPPPPS: It's October, seven months after I did the laser collimation, and everything is still fine and exactly the same. That tells me that the collimation on this one only needs to be done once, maybe if it gets out of whack during shipping. After that there's no need - unless you bump it or drop it badly. At least that's my experience.PPPPPPS: It is end of February 2015 now, and I had some very good views of the great Nebula in Orion M42. The scope is still perfectly collimated since almost a year ago, last time I did the collimation with a laser. Again, the message here is that if you spend the time to collimate it properly and don't bump it after that, it will stay sharp almost forever ... Btw I love the $32 celestron R/A single axis motor drive on these telescope, and in my opinion it is a very worthwhile investment. Objects stay in view for almost an hour w/o adjustments. 4

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

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

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

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