Celestron 31150 LCM 114 Series Computerised Newtonian Reflector Telescope, Silver

Excellent little telescope! The best thing about it is the automated sky tracking. The telescope will track with most objects for quite a while before getting off. This telescope is also fairly compact which is great when going through a doorway. While I had some difficulty getting it to "skyalign" I was able to align to Jupiter no problem. I'm still fairly new at using it, so I haven't figured everything out yet, but it seems pretty straight forward.This telescope does have a Bird-Jones lens, which isn't very clear in the product description. That is how you are able to get such a long focal length with such a small scope. The Bird-Jones lens is like having a permanent Barlow lens built into the focusing tube. Don't forget it is there when cleaning your lenses. If you add a Barlow lens it will most likely over reach the telescope's capability. Make sure you make your calculations before adding non stock lenses. I was able to collimate using a laser collimator without taking out the Bird-Jones lens. Instead of a tiny dot you have a red circle you have to center in the rings. If the circle is fuzzy, then you don't have the beam hitting the focuser tube properly. Once I collimated, I was able to get a clearer image using the more powerful lenses.The laser spotting scope is really nice and can be set accurately, but it is knocked off very easily. The on/off dial is too similar with the alignment adjusters and I've accidentally grabbed the wrong dial in the dark and threw off the alignment. But it is easy to reset. It can be very accurate if you fine tune it with a more powerful optic lens.The photos I took of the planets and moon were with my iPhone. The view was actually much clearer with just my eye. You can see the band around Saturn and the Moons of Jupiter. I'd like to know what other people are using to get the much nicer images using this scope.Now that I have it, I wish I would have went the distance and spent the big bucks on a Celestron Advanced VX 6" f/8 Refractor Telescope.

I am a professional in the telescope industry so I can say this is not my first purchase of a computerized telescope. This is actually a fairly decent telescope although it is of the Bird Jones Optical design. This means it is barlowed in the focuser to increase the focal length and to correct for a spherical mirror. Normally a spherical mirror would mean a very poor article performer but the bird Jones Barlow really does a good job of fixing that. If you have a red dot finder it may be a bit of a challenge to get it in sync with the OTA or Optical tube assembly but doable. This base will break on you if you over tighten the computerized section to the lower mount tripod legs. So go very easy on connecting these two and the base should not shatter. This is one flaw of this particular amount. Collimation is very simple for the primary mirror. Buy a fake star and put at a distance. Aim the scope at it. Adjust until the out of focus star is in the center and perfectly round or very close. This was good enough for this scope to give good images. I hope this helps.

Have collimated and set up focus finder without much hassle. This is my first telescope as an adult, difficulty level to do these is minimal, just do your research.YouTube has great examples on how to set up the various aspects of the telescope; wouldn’t recommend a child do it though.Will update with moon pictures soon. So far very impressed with this telescope. Motor is smooth, the tripod is not great but functions. Adding weight could help with wobbles.UPDATE: First night out and had some clouds but got great pictures of the moon. Shot with iPhone. Telescope performed great.Second night out I was able to see various planets, most stunning was Jupiter and it’s four moons.Alignment was easy, I used a single planet alignment which took less than two minutes and it tracked well.Note: I used a Celestron 24mm-8mm adjustable lense, a 2x Barlow, and a phone mount.

Being new to star searching, this fits the bill. It is taking time to learn, but worth it. We got it just for fun, something to do while sitting outside. It's worth it, if the weather and the stars align.

First, I would like to say Amazon did me a solid. I received this one on 6/6 but due to some health issues and these extremely HOT temperatures it sat unopened for about 5 weeks. Past the return window. After I explained my issues, they let me return it for a full refund and even a UPS pickup.Now to the scope. It was pretty easy to set up. The finder scope is not the best anyway but for a person with a very bad back it was pretty much impossible to use. I am tall and trying to bend over and get my head turned sideways wasn't going to happen. To make it even worse there is no way to effectively upgrade it without drilling holes in the tube which I was not going to do.Next after getting I did some research I should have done earlier. Keeping the Newtonian design collimated looks like a lot of work. What I could see was blurry, couldn't get it into focus and the magnification wasn't great.I know some of the people on the FB groups are elitist snobs or 12-year-old kids trolling but I wish I had taken their thouths on it more to heart. They did get me to doing reviews from websites and a good review was rare.Spend as a few extra bucks. This might keep kids entertained for a while, but I suspect not for long.