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Celestron astromaster 130 eq md


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I presently have celestron firstscope 76mm . Its a nice scope but now i want to explore more . Im planning to buy celestron astromaster 130 eq md which is available at amazon in india for 23k rupees . I only want to see some of the deep sky objects , rings of saturn in a little more detail than firstscope and bands on jupiter and probably the grs . Should i buy this scope ? Here in india , only celestron products are available at reasonable price and i have my budget upto 25k rupees . Other scopes such as orion , skywatcher are also available but are above 40k rupees which includes the custom duty , etc. So should i go for this scope ?Plz reply asap and any suggestion is appreciated . Thnx . 

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This will not be what you are wanting to hear but from my experience with the 130EQ you would be better saving up for something that is better and ultimately more usable and satisfying. The issues I found with this scope are that the CG3 mount which is more like an EQ2 is on the limit of its capacity with the scope, so it tends to be what one person nicely summed up as "nervous" so it takes time for it to settle down every time you touch it which is frustrating. The finder scope that comes with the scope and is kind of integrated with it (no standard shoe fitting)and  is next to useless and trying to use it you spend more time trying to find things rather than observing. The standard eyepieces that come with it are not so good. My 130EQ came with a 25mm correct image EP for terrestrial views. The Spider vanes which hold the secondary mirror in place are thick plastic items which adversely affect views with respect to diffraction spikes. Other models of 130mm reflectors tend to use thinner spider supports. Most of these issues can be dealt with, I did. The tripod/mount can be made better, it is possible to add a proper finder and upgrading the eyepieces would probably happen anyway but in my opinion, "out of the box" the 130EQ could have been so much better and its a shame that it takes work to make it more user friendly. The Skywatcher 130p Explorer is better in most respects. Interestingly the "little" Skywatcher Heritage 130p minidob (which I've also owned) is a remarkable package which is fun to use and so compact. There will no doubt be 130EQ owners who are happy with their scope, but this is my personal experience.

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4 hours ago, Alfian said:

This will not be what you are wanting to hear but from my experience with the 130EQ you would be better saving up for something that is better and ultimately more usable and satisfying. The issues I found with this scope are that the CG3 mount which is more like an EQ2 is on the limit of its capacity with the scope, so it tends to be what one person nicely summed up as "nervous" so it takes time for it to settle down every time you touch it which is frustrating. The finder scope that comes with the scope and is kind of integrated with it (no standard shoe fitting)and  is next to useless and trying to use it you spend more time trying to find things rather than observing. The standard eyepieces that come with it are not so good. My 130EQ came with a 25mm correct image EP for terrestrial views. The Spider vanes which hold the secondary mirror in place are thick plastic items which adversely affect views with respect to diffraction spikes. Other models of 130mm reflectors tend to use thinner spider supports. Most of these issues can be dealt with, I did. The tripod/mount can be made better, it is possible to add a proper finder and upgrading the eyepieces would probably happen anyway but in my opinion, "out of the box" the 130EQ could have been so much better and its a shame that it takes work to make it more user friendly. The Skywatcher 130p Explorer is better in most respects. Interestingly the "little" Skywatcher Heritage 130p minidob (which I've also owned) is a remarkable package which is fun to use and so compact. There will no doubt be 130EQ owners who are happy with their scope, but this is my personal experience.

Apart from the mount and finderscope , are the images crisp and good ?

 

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You might be able to reduce the vibrations with some anti-vibration pads under the legs and/or a weight on or suspended from the accessory tray.

As for sharp, crisp and good images, you need to collimate this scope, with a laser collimator or Cheshire eyepiece, which isn't hard to do but is part of the periodic maintenance you need to do on Newtonian reflectors.

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