AstroMaster 70AZ

This is a fantastic beginners refractor telescope. I bought this for my sons 8th birthday earlier this year. Unfortunately we just missed out on the clear skies we had in March with the Jupiter Venus conjunction. That said we've had a few clear skies since then to get good use out of the scope where we have seen some fabulous views of the moon, Jupiter, Venus & Saturn.I would highly recommend an additional purchase of the Celestron eyepiece set to use with this scope. The refractor comes with two eyepieces, a 20mm & 10mm. The 20mm is ok but the 10mm in my opinion is a poor eyepiece. Since purchasing the eyepiece set I don't think I have bothered with either of the two included eyepieces as the set one's are far better quality (in particular the 32mm eyepiece). Getting back to the telescope I was impressed with the build quality of both the tripod and scope. The tripod is an Alt-Azimuth. At first I regretted not getting an equatorial mount for the scope which is recommended over the Alt-Azimuth for astronomy. I'm not so bothered about it now as I find the tripod very easy to set up which means I can get it out of the house and into the garden quickly. My son has also used the scope for spotting on the seafront which an Alt-Azimuth is recommended for so you now have more than one use for the telescope. Perhaps in the future we may purchase an equatorial mount when it's time to upgrade but this suits us perfectly for now.The scope has a dove tail mount for the tripod, I noticed some reviewers complain about the scope wobbling at the mount which I have also experienced but I got round this by taking my time carefully mounting the scope to the tripod. Once done you don't really need to do this again as I tend to put the telescope away by removing the tray and collapsing the tripod legs rather than removing the scope from the tripod.With the stock 20mm eyepiece you will see Jupiter and it's four largest moons, the phases of Venus, Saturn with it's rings visible and as expected with most telescopes very clear close up images of the moon. I think this is excellent for what is a sub £100 telescope.There are of course things not to like at this price range. I've already commented on what I think about the stock eyepieces. My only other gripe is with the diagonal which has a cheap plastic feel to it. It's perfectly functional but I found over time it loosened with the screws not doing a good job of holding it tightly to the back of the scope. I ended up replacing this for a better quality celestron diagonal which cost about £25. Money well spent.Hopefully you can see an image I have attached of the moon taken with a compact camera mounted to this telescope via a 32mm eyepiece. Definitely recommend upgrading your eyepieces, that said at less than £100 this is the scope to get and perfect for starting out in Astronomy.Update - 19-Sep-2012 :-Just like to add that I recently purchased a Telrad red dot finder to use with this telescope which I'm very glad I did as it helped me locate the Andromeda Galaxy last night! Seeing conditions were as good as they get with no moon but still some light pollution what with living 35 miles outside of London and near an airport. People who say that this scope is limited to just solar objects are wrong! You can use this for viewing Deep Sky Objects (DSO) as well. Ok Andromeda was just a faint grey smudge but I still managed to locate it with this telescope using the stock 20mm eyepiece. Simply amazing!

Brilliant telescope, simple to use with great optics. Can't fault the telescope, The only problem is the tripod it comes with, which is not good for astronomy, sell it and use the money to buy a equitorial mount and you won't be disappointed.

I bought this telescope a few weeks ago as my first telescope. I had been watching some programmes about space and decided to get myself a scope so I could have a look for myself.I have used the telescope about 3 times since I've had it but it's mainly because I'm busy with studying at the moment but I have had chance to have a good look at the moon and was very impressed. I got a very sharp image and could easily make out craters on the moon.I did some star gazing in my back garden one night but was not terribly impressed as, like somebody on here already pointed out, the telescope only really makes more stars visible and makes the stars which are already visible slighly brighter.Not yet had change to look at Saturn but plan to do so when I get chance!Oh, one other thing, I bought the moon filter. I don't know if it's worth £15 to be honest (inc delivery). Without the filter the moon still looked amazing. It just lowered the brightness of it a bit.I used the telescope to view some countryside from out of my bedroom window and could see a house that was barely visible with my naked eyes which was impressive. Very clear picture.People are right about the verticle lock, you need to aim the scope below what you want to view before tightening but I beleive with practice this would become easy.Will probably update my review once I have had more time using it. I'm off to the lake district at the end of June so will be taking it with me there. Hopefully will get some nice darkness to test it out properly.I think the telescope is good then, but I have nothing to compare it with.Thanks,Ross

I bought both the 50AZ and 70AZ and they are worlds apart! The 70AZ has a very useable tripod and the Eyepieces are of good enough quality for starters. Obviously using more expensive/better quality eyepieces will improve performance. my only gripe with the telescope i recieved was some of the polystyrene packaging(a few specks) had got inside the tube either during packing or delivery. i shook them out without much dificulty.Performance wise the telescope is good, the red dot finder is reasonably easy to set up, but when looking at objects overhead you have to get right under it which needs some contortions at times. i would recommend this scope to starters, it's light weight and reasonable construction make it worth the £65.00 spent. The 50AZ was £40 cheaper but absolutely useless, i wrote a review about it, but in summary i was deeply saddened by celestrons decision to let the 50AZ be marketed under their name. especially as their other products of 60mm and upwards are all good budget kit.Dont believe all you may read on other sites telling you that you need a big reflector telescope to see anything. these long focal length refractors are virtually CA free (chromatic aberation) and give good views for beginners. the whole myth of poor optics on small refractors comes from cheap telescopes like the 50AZ and other toyshop telescopes.

Easy enough to setup and use. As others have stated the mount isn’t great. Big movement’s are fine , small ones are a nightmare. Image was fine, maybe smaller than I expected (but that’s my own expectations). Biggest issue was keeping things in view with the awkward mount. I returned and got a NexStar 8se with a go to mount which removes this issue.I would recommend if you wanted something you can chuck in a car for occasional use but not for me.