Celestron 31042 AstroMaster 114EQ Newtonian Reflector Telescope, Dark Blue

Product Information

Never look directly at the Sun with the naked eye or with an optic (unless you have the proper solar filter). Permanent and irreversible eye damage may result. Mix distilled water with isopropyl alcohol – which is a over the counter medication in the same ratio to clean the optics.

Turn your Celestron PowerSeeker telescope into a solar scope! The EclipSmart Eclipse Solar Filter is a must-have accessory perfect for viewing the Sun and eclipses like the upcoming 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse and 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. Affordable, easy to use, and best of all, all Celestron EclipSmart products conform to the ISO 12312-2:2015(E) international safety standard. This solar filter is custom designed for the Celestron AstroMaster 114EQ and Celestron 114AZ-SR telescopes. Two hook and loop straps securely hold the filter in place for a safe, snug fit. The problems don’t end here, though. The correctors in these scopes are incredibly cheaply made and aren’t remotely close to the right shape, being glorified cheap Barlow lenses. As a result, the 114EQ cannot achieve decent images even when well-collimated, which itself is hard to do. Accessories include a 20mm and 10mm eyepiece, a finderscope, a moon filter, a smartphone adapter, and a motor drive. The two eyepieces offer different magnifications for low and high powered views. It comes with two eyepieces. The 20mm eyepiece will give a moderately wide field view with low magnification, and the 10mm eyepiece will produce comparatively narrower field views with higher magnification. 4. The AstroMaster Equatorial Mount The PowerSeeker accessory kit, which I actually got (and still use), contains a 15mm Kellner, a 9mm Kellner, and three filters: an #80A light blue filter, a #25 dark red filter, and a cheap dark Moon filter, which I never use and you don’t need. The 15mm eyepiece is a nice middle-ground between the 20mm and 10mm, but the 9mm is redundant when paired with the AstroMaster’s 10mm. The 80A filter is actually quite useful for bringing out details on Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.With a 114mm aperture, the 114EQ is ideal for viewing the moon, planets and some bright galaxies and nebulae. Setting up the telescope is a breeze. Even on your first time out, you can assemble the telescope and its accessories in just a few minutes. The total telescope kit weighs in at just 6.7 pounds—perfect for impromptu observing sessions or transporting wherever life’s adventures take you. That being said, you need to understand that it is not a plug-and-play device. It has a learning curve due to having to learn to collimate it and align the equatorial mount before you even get to use it. This will be frustrating to some users that might have different expectations from a device that is meant to be “entry-level”. The 114EQ uses a Bird-Jones optical arrangement. It pretends to be a Newtonian telescope, except that the focal length is much longer than the tube itself. How does this work? A corrector lens is placed in the optical path both to correct for the spherical aberration of the primary mirror and to compress the light path to fit into a shorter tube. In theory, such an arrangement could be a good, cheap alternative to a parabolic Newtonian, especially when it was invented–in the days before correctly figured parabolic mirrors were common in mass-market telescopes. In practice, though, pretty much every Bird-Jones is implemented incorrectly, with the corrector lens in the focuser.

But once you have everything set up, the telescope is actually very easy to use. The Equatorial mount makes finding and focusing on objects a breeze.

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Accessories include a 20mm and 10mm eyepiece, a finderscope, a smartphone adapter, and a motor drive. The two eyepieces offer different magnifications for low and high powered views. A StarPointer red-dot finderscope works as a sighting tool while aiming at the telescope at the desired target. It is a reflex sight that functions using a red LED to project a superimposed red dot on your target. Align the finderscope with the main optics of the telescope before using it. Specifications at a glance

Any 1.25" eyepiece supplied with PowerSeeker and AstroMaster telescope kits or any eyepieces with a 34mm outside diameterThat being said, I do have a bit of a problem with it, and that’s the price. Not because it is high, but because for just a few dollars more you can get its big brother, the AstroMaster 130EQ which offers the same quality, but a bit extra power.

You won't believe how easy it is to see the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with your AstroMaster 114EQ. When used for astronomical viewing, AstroMasters yield breathtaking views of the Moon, Saturn's ring structure, Jupiter's cloud bands and moons, favorite deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula, star clusters, and more. Ans: Answer: Yeah, but in this case you require two additional accessories. One is T-adapter, and the other is T-ring. In addition, the ISO and shutter speed require manual adjustment. First, it can’t easily be removed, which is basically required to collimate the telescope precisely and achieve sharp images. Second, it means that the spacing between the corrector and the primary mirror is not fixed, but instead varies depending on what eyepiece you’re using and also whether you’re nearsighted or farsighted. So the correction is constantly varying depending on what eyepiece is used or even who is looking through the telescope. Submit a valuation request and we'll provide guide prices with no delay. Plus, we'll collect your gear from your home or work for FREE. It took me almost one hour to put it together to look through the telescope. The tripod is fairly sturdy providing a stable position. The mount is good enough to make it movable around your house or in the outdoors.

Celestron Astromaster 114 review

The tripod is sturdy enough actually, and it comes with an eyepiece tray, which I used occasionally. It isn’t a large enough tray to support the accessory kit box, though! What does the telescope come with? Unlike a basic 70mm telescope that’s only good for observing the moon and Jupiter, with the 114EQ you can see some of the craters on the moon, explore Jupiter’s moons and see Saturn’s rings. Never use your optic to project an image of the Sun onto any surface. Internal heat build-up can damage the optic and any accessories attached to it.