Celestron Astromaster 130EQ - Review

[Jazzmatazz]

Hi guys, just thought of droping a line on my experience with the scope.

I decided for this scope after considering all variants and for me it was one of the best options within the target aperture and my budget.

Although the Equatorial mount is a challenge for beginners, i felt it would be easier for me to struggle with it in the begining where i'd be motivated for new challenges, that to get set with a alt-az mount and later get a new scope on a EQ mount and learning it then. IDK for me this made sense. 

I think the scope is a good first buy-amateur choice as the aperture-price relation is quite good as most newtonians. I like the mount it's quite stable, and personally i like the looks of it =) 

The weaknesses of the scope for me reside in its eyepieces, my first upgrade was a meade 5000 24mm and the retail eyepieces now seem like something you'd give to someone to prevent them from starting the hobby! They're simply way too bad, dark eyepieces... there's a 10 and 20mm, the 20mm i don't even use anymore, and the 10mm i use on really bright objects like moon or jupiter. After centering M31 on the Meade 24mm i changed to the retail 10mm and i could barely see it, they're really bad bad eyepieces and I think its such a shame Celestron provides them with a rather nice scope.

The setting circles are also of no help due to the error margin beeing so great, i completely stoped using them and coordinates at all. Unless you have large setting circles that diminish your error margin they're useless. 

Other thing i hate is the RDF that comes with the scope. 1st problem is to get it aligned - impossible! If you like impossible tasks, difficult puzzles maybe this could be fun for you, I just gave up hope on that. The other problem is to see even bright objects through both the plastic lens of the RDF, even jupiter with a little dew simply vanishes from it. 

Apart from the retail EPs you learn to cope with the RDF, and it can actually make you memorize the views at the Eyepiece of the surroundings of an object. I know when i'm near M31 or Mirach, because i always "land" near them and always need to take steps to get to them, it can be instructive not beeing able to go straight to and object )))

Overall i'm happy with the scope, paired with the meade 24mm its been really fun to look at DSOs, my fav targets!

I'd Say:

PROS - Aperture-Cost Relation, steady mount, 

CONS - Retail EPs, RFD and setting circles

UPGRADE POSSIBILITIES:

Concerning upgrades, i'm thinking to go for a 10-15mm eyepiece, a really bright one as the meade 5000 24mm, any suggestions? =)

Also i'm thinking of replacing the RDF either with a 9x50 Finderscope or a laser pointer (i cant find many opinions on lasers, help?) any tips there?

As a second scope i'm thinking of going for a Schmit-Cassergrain towards a 200mm aperture my goal now beeing the relation Aperture-portability and I thing SCs beat Newts there, right?

[Laurie61]

Interesting review  we (my brother and I ) came to similar conclusions after buying one a few years ago. The scope has nice optics and reasonable mount but has the usual compromises with EP's, finder as many/all other scopes at this price point. The 20mm EP has a prism fitted to provide a 'correct' view which is not needed for astro use so we removed this and opened up the field stop/ front aperture to allow the EP to work normally, modified in this way it provides perfectly decent performance. 

The telescope has other problems however. The tube is too short (try putting measurements into newtweb) and as a consequence a lot of light misses the secondary. We fixed this by replacing the mirror cell mounting screws with much longer ones and inserting springs. The standard collimation screws can then be wound back full and the new screws used for alignment instead. This extended the effective tube length by about 2cm and recovered most of the lost light. In our case we also replaced the finder with something made up from some spare lenses.

Eyepiece after mod -

New mirror position -

 

[Lowjiber]

Nice review.

My neighbor got one for Chrismas last year, and I helped him with it a bit over the summer.

I agree, the RDF is a piece of junk on an otherwise nice scope. A 9x50 RACI might be a bit heavy, and you might look around for a 6x30 just to keep the balance issue a little cleaner.

Regarding the supplied eyepieces... I again agree that they're not of a high quality. However, as you drop eyepiece focal length, the magnification goes up, but the surface brightness of an object decreases. On a "smudgy" target like M31, that difference in surface brightness may have tainted your opinion.

I had a few decent Plossls in my "sock drawer" and hooked my neighbor up with a 25mm and a 10mm Plossl that really impressed him. With a focal ratio of f/5, that scope is pretty sensitive to better eyepieces... multi-lens, multi-stage. We stuck a couple of my Explore Scientific 82 deg eyepieces and the scope responded accordingly.

One more comment. Out-of-the-box, my neighbor's scope was slightly out of collimation... enough to make a difference in a scope that fast (f/5). After a collimation "lesson", his scope's focus became much sharper. He was able to resolve four stars in the Trapezium of M42 without a problem.

Thanks for the useful and well-written report. I'm sure others will be getting that scope for Christmas, and your report will prove helpful.

Clear, Dark Skies

[hazegood]

Have the same scope, replaced the RDF with a Rigel quickfinder much easier to use and align,

Didn't like the EQ mount so use it on a SW AZ goto,

Am looking into moving the primary up the tube a short distance, as  standard wont allow my 1100d to get focus

 

[MattJenko]

I also had this as a first scope and think this is a very reasonable and fair review. One thing that helped me with the RDF was some advice to not look right through it, but to use it with both eyes so the dot is superimposed over the unobstructed view of the sky from the other eye. This worked quite well.

[Kriss Craik]

Thanks for taking the time to post this, I'm considering getting this scope. Will need to factor in the eyepiece upgrade into the cost.

[Jazzmatazz]

hope It helps! If you have any questions, i'm happy to help!

cheers!

[Kriss Craik]

Thanks, will do