Celestron 21061 AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope | Fully Coated Glass Optics, Crisp Moon & Planetary Views, Alt-Azimuth Mount with Easy Manual Controls, Beginner Friendly

The celestron Astromaster 70 As is just an astronomical marvel .First of all the packaging was very good taking care that non of the components were damaged during transit. The components of the scope were very easy to assemble requiring no use of the manual at all. The tripod is sturdy,heavy and made of cast iron which gives this awesome tripod a lot of stability. The pan handle of this tripod makes movement both in horizontal and vertical direction very easy. The tripod comes with lock capability to stabilize the scope at a particular site in the sky. Coming to the telescope itself,its just a beauty with a dark glossy blue paint which gives the scope a lot of glamour. The optics are fully coated to give crisp view. The objective is covered with a 2 inch collar which prevents scattered light to enter the objective . its also has its own cap to prevent dust entry. The scope comes with fully coated 20 mm and 10 mm eyepieces of 1.25 diameter. Even though both are Kellner eyepieces the 10 mm gives excellent view of both land and sky objects. The 10 mm is a bit letdown. However upgradation to 15 mm super plossl gives awesome views. The moon has gotten so near coz of this scope.All craters are easily visible and the smooth rack and pinion focuser makes focusing a glory. Venus going through its lunar like transits are easily visible, Jupiter with its moons.the cloud band of Jupiter can be easily appreciated. Saturn with its rings is just a sight to take ones breathe away.mars with a little adjustment reveals its ice caps with this scope. The orion nebula and deep sky objects like Andromeda galaxy are visible through it. The scope also has its own utility tray for keeping spare eyepieces.The scope comes along with a led finderscope which can be adjusted with two finger screws to bring the finder's dots in alignment with the telescope. This telescope even comes with its own sky software which is also very easy to use. One can chose his own location in the pc and locate objects in the sky with ease.However there is always room for improvement by celestron.The telescope is little jerky at high magnificatins which needs correction. The 10 mm eyepiece should be changed.it has very little eye relief. Since its a 70 mm f13 objective so one should not hope of getting useable magnifications above 140x. I had a 6 inch reflector but this gives much clearer images. Another great part of all refractors is that they don't need any maintenance. The reflectors require constant collimation which is a pain. Then the mirrors slowly lose their optical abilities requiring realuminization which is an even greater pain. But such tragedies are avoided if one buys any refractor telescopes. Overall its a great scope , worth the price. Only thing is that one should buy a plossl 15 mm for best results.....

Epic telescope for beginners, I've been using this since 2 years and this telescope is easy to set up except if you cant pick more then 7-8, it'll be little hard for you to set cause the stand itself is heavy but overall the telescope is insane as I observed Moon(a lot of times and with more and more clarity each time I use it), Jupiter, Saturn(the rings were beautiful), Venus and some Stars like Sirius, Rigel, Beetlejuice and others, anyway this telescope is worth it to buy if you want to start stargazing but if you're already pro you should try Celestron Astromaster 130 eq md, hope you like this review.

This is good for a beginner as well as for a semi-experienced. The packaging came good,but the lens of the main tube was slightly loose. I fitted it,however. It has a long and heavy tripod, perfect for astronomy. But, if a strong wind is blowing,then it slightly vibrates. The aperture of the telescope is 70mm and focal length is 900mm. U will get a maximum magnification of 90x,which is not too good and not too bad. Still u will see rings of Saturn and Andromeda galaxy in clear skies. The coating of the telescope is very beautiful. And the most liking fact is that, u can see all planets of solar system. For galaxies,u need very clear and stable atmospheric conditions. Images are significantly clear. If u r beginner, go for it. Also keep limited expectations.

Damaged item was sent.

Best scope for beginners, easy to assemble and very good optics. Moon is so beautiful to watch, used a T-Ring adapter with my DSLR to take my first shots and it came out good, and believe me it is too good from naked eye. Saw Jupiter and it’s moons, but they were tiny with given eye pieces 20/10mm, will get 2x barlow soon to check how it looks. The mount is not good, struggled to fit it in one place….I was reading thru AZ vs EQ mounts and went for AZ for ease of assembly and use, but now I understand EQ mount with slow motion control is better and much needed while viewing….now can’t don’t anything..have got AZ now have to live with it….. On the packaging there was damage, but nothing happened to the scope so I am ok, but seller and shipper need take some care on this…. Anyhow i am very happy with the optics and my longtime wish is attained, will continue my hobby with this astromaster 70AZ

This telescope comes with 20mm and 10mm eyepiece. But I found only 20mm is good. And 10mm is of no use. 10mm is showing very dark image and magnification is little high than 20mm. So it is of no use. For land and sky both types of viewing with 20mm is good. I saw jupiter with its 4 moons. I can see faint color bands on jupiter. Moon is same as I can see it by binocular. Product is sturdy but costly compared to other products.

Excellent telescope for beginners with best quality product. If you want to view the telescopic view of planets, you can visit my youtube channel- "Astro Pahwa". Moon, Rings of Saturn, Jupiter with its 3 to 4 moons and Mars are clearly visible through it. I reside in Delhi-NCR which is well known for air and light pollution. But within 2 days of my purchase, I was able to see Rings of Saturn and Jupiter with 4 moons. Next Day I saw Mars too. However, the expectations of a fresher/ beginner astronaut use to be very high. A fresher/beginner astronaut (like me) expect a large view same as of Internet Pics....Whereas the real view is as small as a Dot. Still very clear and beautiful. I have also used Celestron 60az power seeker. This telescope is far-far better than that. For beginners, it's value for money.

An Excellent product. Value for money. It's really nice to see Moon detailed surface with creators and seas on moon. It really great to see Jupiter with its moons. Yet to see Saturn rings and it's moon.

This is a fantastic beginners refractor telescope. I bought this for my sons 8th birthday earlier this year. Unfortunately we just missed out on the clear skies we had in March with the Jupiter Venus conjunction. That said we've had a few clear skies since then to get good use out of the scope where we have seen some fabulous views of the moon, Jupiter, Venus & Saturn. I would highly recommend an additional purchase of the Celestron eyepiece set to use with this scope. The refractor comes with two eyepieces, a 20mm & 10mm. The 20mm is ok but the 10mm in my opinion is a poor eyepiece. Since purchasing the eyepiece set I don't think I have bothered with either of the two included eyepieces as the set one's are far better quality (in particular the 32mm eyepiece). Getting back to the telescope I was impressed with the build quality of both the tripod and scope. The tripod is an Alt-Azimuth. At first I regretted not getting an equatorial mount for the scope which is recommended over the Alt-Azimuth for astronomy. I'm not so bothered about it now as I find the tripod very easy to set up which means I can get it out of the house and into the garden quickly. My son has also used the scope for spotting on the seafront which an Alt-Azimuth is recommended for so you now have more than one use for the telescope. Perhaps in the future we may purchase an equatorial mount when it's time to upgrade but this suits us perfectly for now. The scope has a dove tail mount for the tripod, I noticed some reviewers complain about the scope wobbling at the mount which I have also experienced but I got round this by taking my time carefully mounting the scope to the tripod. Once done you don't really need to do this again as I tend to put the telescope away by removing the tray and collapsing the tripod legs rather than removing the scope from the tripod. With the stock 20mm eyepiece you will see Jupiter and it's four largest moons, the phases of Venus, Saturn with it's rings visible and as expected with most telescopes very clear close up images of the moon. I think this is excellent for what is a sub £100 telescope. There are of course things not to like at this price range. I've already commented on what I think about the stock eyepieces. My only other gripe is with the diagonal which has a cheap plastic feel to it. It's perfectly functional but I found over time it loosened with the screws not doing a good job of holding it tightly to the back of the scope. I ended up replacing this for a better quality celestron diagonal which cost about £25. Money well spent. Hopefully you can see an image I have attached of the moon taken with a compact camera mounted to this telescope via a 32mm eyepiece. Definitely recommend upgrading your eyepieces, that said at less than £100 this is the scope to get and perfect for starting out in Astronomy. Update - 19-Sep-2012 :- Just like to add that I recently purchased a Telrad red dot finder to use with this telescope which I'm very glad I did as it helped me locate the Andromeda Galaxy last night! Seeing conditions were as good as they get with no moon but still some light pollution what with living 35 miles outside of London and near an airport. People who say that this scope is limited to just solar objects are wrong! You can use this for viewing Deep Sky Objects (DSO) as well. Ok Andromeda was just a faint grey smudge but I still managed to locate it with this telescope using the stock 20mm eyepiece. Simply amazing!

it is a great scope for beginners! I bought it for my 5 yr old son who could see the moon and its craters in his first try!! super easy to setup, looks sturdy and made of quality materials. Displacement not sharp so I guess it will be a good challenge to visualize smaller objects such as Jupiter or Saturn. we only looked at the moon which was amazing! very sharp image ( you do not see same quality in the picture attached taken by my cellphone). all in all highly recommended for beginners who look for sth that motivates you in astronomy. UPDATED: we bought this in last winter so no chance to try it regularly (winter=coldddd), until now (May 2021) that weather is pleasant. and now we started to discover this little powerful scope! the second picture I uploaded is taken with my phone just through the eyepiece! the same way and the same phone I used for the first picture but as you get used to the scope and better adjust it you can enjoy it more and more. the picture quality is that good that I decided to buy the T ring adaptor for my Nikon SLR camera to mount it on the scope and take even better quality pictures. also I bought a set of eyepieces with different magnification plus a set of filters to level up our sky watching experience. all said, I recommend this scope 100%.

Muito bom telescópio, principalmente para iniciantes!

Oyuncak gibi

Tenía dudas de comprar el telescopio debido a reseñas que indicaban que llegaba en mal estado o que les enviaban el modelo LT, sin embargo llegó en perfecto estado y justo el modelo que es Astromaster 70az incluye todo lo que dice la publicación y el manual de usuario y ensamble es bastante claro.