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At last I have my first telescope - Celestron 114eq


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After a little set back I got offered this a very good price, a Celestron Astromaster 114EQ.

It came with 2 eye pieces both Celestron branded - 20mm erecting eyepiece and a 10mm.

Am I right in thinking the erecting eyepiece allows me to view land based objects the right way up and its not a barlow so can you guys recommend a sensibly priced barlow and some moon filters to go with it ?

Finally, reading the instructions, seems to me to be set up incorrectly so I will reassemble it but cant get my head around balancing the scope.

Well pleased with it so far.

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Hi I have the astromaster 130 eq and yes the 20mm is not much use for observing as the FOV is so small. I'm just about to upgrade mine. I have a Tal 2x barlow which works very well with a 15mm and 10mm ep - it's a good price barlow and is consistently recommended as a good one.

There's a good sticky on here somewhere to help with balancing - lots of pictures which I found very helpful to check I'd set up right ;)

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First, read my sticky, "Eyepieces - the very least you need." A decent kit for your scope would be a 6mm, 10mm 16mm and 24mm. That will give you a nice range of magnifications. Buy brand-name plossls unless you can afford something better right off the bat.

I am pretty sure the eps that come with this scope are 1.25". An easy way to find out is to take a ruler and measure the diameter of the end of the ep that goes into the tube. It will be either 1¼", or slightly less than an inch (.965") That will answer your question.

A reflecting telescope isn't much good for terrestrial viewing. The view through your 20mm ep is so poor because of all the extra glass they had to put in to make it an erecting eyepiece. Most 114mm scopes (all, in my experience) are not parabolically ground, so the 6mm is pushing it a little.

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Actually I found the 20mm okay for basic viewing. The 10mm is not much good. The only downside with the astromaster series is the awful finder. You'll need to replace it or use a low mag e\p as your fiinder. Other than that I think they are nice starter scopes.

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i wouldnt have thought youd need two wieghts,and right at the bottom too,mmm.

maybe once you set the correct axis on the mount.

and as mentioned earlier, dont bother with the finder, it will just frustrate you and put you off.

look foward to some reports from your viewings, good luck...

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If that's the way you have your mount set up, you need to find a tutorial on setting up an equatorial mount. I won't go into it in this post, but your setup is all wrong. Common beginner's mistake, so don't fret.

Try this

This one looks pretty good http://www.themcdonalds.net/richard/index.php?title=Setting_Up_an_Equatorial_Mount

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Wow I followed that guide and i thought i did a pretty good job !

The only thing i have done different is rotate the tube a little more to allow ground based object to be the right way up.

I cant see what else is wrong :icon_salut:

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