More Information  · Supplied Accessories Price $209.00 List Price $357.95 Highest Useful Magnification 225x Visual Limiting Magnitude 12.8 Focal Length 1000mm Focal Ratio f/8.8 Resolution 1.02 arc seconds Aperture 4.5" Net Weight 17 lbs. Warranty 2 years

The optical quality of this Celestron is surprisingly good, considering its very modest price. You’ll see detailed and high contrast views of the Moon, planets, binary stars, and star clusters – as well as the brighter nebulas and galaxies outside the solar system. The rugged and stable CG-2 equatorial mount has manual slow motion controls in both axes. These let you easily locate solar system and deep space objects and manually track them across the sky. At only 17 lbs., it’s lightweight and compact enough to fit in virtually any storage space, but it’s optically big enough to keep an observer happy for years.

This Telescope’s Optical System . . .

• Reflector optical tube: 114mm (4.5”) aperture f/9 focal ratio Newtonian reflector. All-glass mirrors, coated with highly reflective aluminum and overcoated with quartz for long life. There are no plastic optical components. 20 inch long 1000mm focal length aluminum tube with protective tube end rings. The reflector design of the scope is totally free of the purple haze of spurious color visible around the Moon and planets in lesser refractor scopes. Images are sharp and clear. You can even collimate (align) both mirrors for the sharpest images. This will have to be done only rarely, thanks to the special design of the cell holding the lightweight primary mirror.

• Rack and pinion focuser: The 1.25” focuser has dual focusing knobs for precise image control with either hand. The large focus knobs are easy to operate, even while wearing gloves or mittens in cold weather.

• Two eyepieces: You get a medium high power 1.25” 10mm (100x) eyepiece and a lower power 1.25” 20mm (50x) erect image eyepiece with a 1.4° field of view (almost three times the diameter of the full Moon). The 50x erect image eyepiece lets you use the 114EQ terrestrially, as its images are not upside-down as they are with most reflectors. Both eyepieces are a higher quality optical design than you’ll find in most other telescopes in this price range. They have antireflection coatings on their lens surfaces for sharp images and very good contrast. Instead of providing low quality eyepieces that give unrealistically high (and generally unusable) 200-300x magnifications, Celestron has chosen to provide higher quality eyepieces with sensible powers you can use and enjoy every time you take your AstroMaster out to observe.

• Finderscope: A non-magnifying red dot finder is permanently attached to the side of the optical tube. The battery-operated red dot finder seems to project a dot of red light on the sky or on the daytime landscape exactly where the telescope is pointed. The red dot will help you center distant objects in the telescope so you don’t have to search for them using the narrow eyepiece field of view. Collimating knobs on the finder let you line up its red dot precisely with the main telescope optics to make centering distant objects easy and painless.

• Supplied software: The AstroMaster includes a comprehensive CD-ROM called TheSky Level 1. This is a computerized sky map for your PC that features a 10,000 object database, 75 color images, and custom sky chart printing. It lets you print out star charts for use with the telescope that make it easier to find difficult objects by comparing the appearance of the sky through the eyepiece with the star field on the star chart. It is for use with a PC only (Windows 95 and newer).

This Telescope’s Mount . . .

• Equatorial mount: The sturdy CG-2 equatorial mount is designed for astronomical observing. By aligning the mount on the north celestial pole, you only need to turn one slow motion control knob to follow planets and stars as they travel across the sky. Two counterweights on the opposite side of the mount from the telescope balance the weight of the optical tube and makes it easy to move the scope effortlessly from one part of the sky to another. No tools are required to adjust the position of the counterweights to quickly and precisely balance the optical tube. A micrometer control lets you adjust the altitude of the scope mount for fast alignment on the north celestial pole with no tools required.