Celestron - AstroMaster 114

[UK1 (Rob)]

Hi

my wife friends daughter has been given a 'Celestron - AstroMaster 114'
what is the viewing expectations with this scope...... please ?

thanks

[TheAstroChannel (Sean)]

With a 114 mm telescope, you will be able to see great detail of the moon, Saturn, Jupiter and it's Moons, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
Deep sky is limited though, 47 Tucana is a good target in the south, Orion Nebula faintly, there are a fair few star cluster's you can see and if you get a Proper solar filter, you can see the sun!

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

The abilities of a scope this size will improve a lot if it can be used at a dark sky site. Many who have scopes this size achieve quite good results with them.

Malcolm

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Hi Rob, and welcome , as Astro and Malcolm just said you will be able to see most things up to a point , but what 114mm's of light gathering is a lot , the moon , planets , brighter star clusters and nebulea , by the thousands .

The secret is learning the night sky and knowing where to look at any given time of the year , thats where astronomy becomes interesting , sussing out a distant object from a book , star chart or " Stellarium" ( a free night sky program , thats universally loved by all here , just google it and download , set your location on the earths surface eg. Cairns , and its there in real time , awsome ) then actually seeing it with your own eyes thru the scope .. great fun and very educational .

Enjoy , but dont rush as the sky aint going anywhere . .

Brian.

[UK1 (Rob)]

thanks all but not my scope I have a 8' newt
just want to know about viewing with the celestron
thanks again

[RobinClayton]

I started with a very similar scope, I didn't have any expectations, it was an unexpected gift and a great pleasure to use.

I was able to find and see many clusters and nebula. Also the moon, Jupiter and Saturn were all good targets.

I did not find any galaxies with this, but even without them it was a good scope for me to start this hobby.

As other people have mentioned, taking it to a dark site is great to be able to see so much more.

[noeyedeer (Matt)]

if it's anything like my Meade 114 eq1, your friends daughter should be able to see quite a bit. as everyone has said you will see the cloudbands on Jupiter, the rings around Saturn, Venus depending on its phase and a whole heap of clusters and a few nebulae.
the hardest part in using the scope is learning how to set it up properly and using the ra/Dec controls. mine is manual and fairly worn so makes fine adjustments quite painful, but I'm patient...if they're happy to spend some time playing with it, I'm sure they will enjoy it.
there's a thread on how to set it up properly on here somewhere, I think its in the stickies up the top of this forum...setting up a German equatorial mount.

[TechnoViking (James)]

Hi Rob,

I started with a 114EQ great little scope, my 12 year old son now has it, and loves it!, you can get fantastic views of the moon, saturn and jupiter, as already posted, nebula's are difficult to see unless you have very dark skies, i have had success with the Orion Nebula (M42) although it was very faint.
You can buy some extra Plossl eye pieces from ebay, or online astro shop quite cheaply some as cheap as $20 each! even check out the classified here. As just about everyone else has said download www.stellarium.org , best free software ever made, use it to plan out your nights viewing, if you have a laptop take it outside with you as a reference.

Good luck! and clear skies

***Warning*** Astronomy is highly addictive!! and yes they should have that printed on all telescopes, please excuse all the gramma and typos i think i have had 9 hours sleep in the last 3 days.. What day is it again?... sigh...

[sil (Steve)]

+1 for getting better eyepieces.

I've got the same scope and its eyepieces are very poor. Good eyepieces really improved things immensely. The 114EQ works very well with good eyepieces down to 10mm typically, while below 10mm will quickly deteriorate the image based on viewing (there is also a lens built into the bottom of the focuser tube which is already magnifying the view, so 10mm is around the practical limit IMO for this scope). Try to get an eyepiece around 20-24mm for a wider view of larger items and to help you get around the sky, and get a 10 or 12mm for a closer look once you've located your viewing target.

I also found out of the box the primary mirror needed a good clean (not just from dust but on close inspection it seemed to have a slight residue from factory cleaning). But you may want to hold off trying to clean it until you get comfortable with collimation to re-align after re-assembly.

The dot finder the 114EQ comes with is pretty much useless, I attached a telrad instead which is infinitely better. The scope also gains much by being left outside for an hour or so after dark before you start viewing so the temperature of the scope and the air inside the tube can settle and acclimatise.