Astromaster 130 EQ

After much searching and investigating I picked this telescope as it had the largest aperture for my price range.It is very well built and was easy to setup and build. The guide is useful, but ended up searching YouTube for a video guide - this also included how to balance the telescope [...]).The telescope itself was supplied with 2 lenses, a 20mm and a 10mm. The 20mm is plastic and I only use it as a starting lens to position the telescope first to what I want to see. The 10mm is a good little lens and give nice view of the stars and moon. I also purchased the 'Celestron AstroMaster Accessory Kit' at the same time - this included lens filters and additional 5mm, 15mm and 2x lenses. This gives more range of magnifications to use with the telescope.Viewing with the telescope is very good. The moon is amazing, but you will NEED a moon filter - it is very bright. You can clearly see the moons of Jupiter and with my additional 5mm lens I can just about make out the markings of Jupiter. As for the other planets they have not been visible in the evenings yet - but can't wait until Saturn appears!The only fault is the StarPointer. It's not that good, but you can work around/with it.I have even had my 4 year old daughter looking at the moon - which she found fascinating as she could see the craters very clearly.Since buying this, I have also contacted Celestron support (issue with the additional lens). They were quick and put me in touch with their local distributor (Hama) in the UK. Hama were also very helpful.All-in-all this is very good for the price it costs. I wanted a good telescope that would allow me to get started in Astronomy, without using it for a short while and having to replace it when I want more. This is a good start and with the right lenses will do for what I want it for. Good quality lenses are not cheap (it's the price of the telescope itself for a set), but I can now slowly upgrade this over time now that I have a decent telescope.

Before I bought my scope I read all the reviews here and to be honest some of them worried me, but I couldn't find better for the price so I bought it. Having now used the scope for six months I feel qualified to comment, and rather than write a straight review I thought I'd answer some of the negative points made previously.Firstly there are those who have questioned the build quality of this scope. Well six months of use have found no problems with the build quality of my scope. If I am being charitable I would say that those who have had problems such as parts shearing must have had poor examples of the product and that maybe QC is not up to much at Celestron. However from my experiences with this and other Celestron products I would say that those users who managed to break their scope are extraordinarily ham fisted. Build quality is fine and indeed better than you would expect for a scope of this spec at this price.Then there are those who have whinged about the quality of the eye pieces. Sure they are not top quality, but the whole scope, mount, tripod and eyepieces cost around £150. You're not going to get a pair of eyepieces which would normally retail at £100 each in a kit for £150 are you. They get the job done and get you started. The only thing I would say about the eyepieces is that if I were speccing this scope I would not include the erecting eyepiece, but would include something else instead. Perhaps a Barlow lens or another atronomical eyepiece, or maybe a good quality moon filter. If you want a scope for terrestrial use you're not going to buy one on an equatorial mount, so why would you want an erecting eyepiece?The most puzzling review is perhaps the chap who was surprised by the size. The dimensions are readily available on the web, and anyway how small did he expect a 130mm reflector to be? Likewise his inability to follow the assembly instructions is not a reason to return the scope.The person who wanted QR clamps on the tripod legs also puzzled me. An equatorial mount will always take a little time to set up and once setup it is presumably going to sit where it is for some time, an hour at least. So what advantage would QR clamps be? You're not going to be picking up the scope and moving it every five minutes as you would with, say, a wildlife scope. So why would you need QR clamps.In short you will not get a better scope of similar specifications and capabilities for the price. This is a classic example of the adage "you get what you pay for". Yes you can get a better 130mm reflector, but for more money. You can even get a worse one for (not much) less. You are not, however, going to get better for the same price. If you want better, pay more. You can't say fairer than that.