Customer Reviews

Celestron 127EQ PowerSeeker Telescope

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I received this telescope as a Christmas present, and have been mostly satisfied with it.

On the plus side: the optics are good, it has a large aperture, a solid mount, and comes with one useful eyepiece.

On the downside, the 4mm eyepiece is completely useless. It yields blurry images and is so small it is nearly impossible to look through. Likewise the 3x barlow lens is very cheap and will only work with the 20mm eyepiece, and poorly at that.

One word of advice: you will need to put a piece of tape in the center of the primary mirror if you want to collimate it properly, which is needed for sharp images. Almost all reflecting telescopes come with a mark in the center of the mirror that is used for this purpose. You can easily find instructions on how to do this online.

That being said I would still recommend this telescope because it is the most powerful one you can get in its price range. You will most likely want to invest in another high zoom (~10mm) eyepiece and barlow lens. When used using my Ccelestron Powerseeker 127 eq with a quality eyepiece, I have show my roommates views of great views of Saturn that "look fake". Several hundred craters are easily visible on the moon when conditions are favorable.

This is a good scope - not great. Would not recommend. The focuser was sloppy, too much play. Disassembled it, added more teflon shims, relubed it with silicon and tightened the gear. The tripod, despite it's rugged looks is flimsy. If you have even a moderate breeze expect your image to be shaky and blurry.

The finder scope is cheap, awkward and poorly mounted.

As an aside - I bought a 70MM Mead refractor ($50). Is easier to use, less bulky and gets just as good an image.

UPDATED COMMENTS: I have had this scope for about a year now. Still not happy with it and will use my recent acquisition, a 40+ y/o Sears Stargazer Refractor, rather than set this thing up. I have been to star parties where there are terrific Celestron Scopes being used - all Schmidt-Cassegrain - with superb images.

My rating has not changed and my humble opinion is that this telescope is not worth the money. I have had the mirror out, cleaned it, have a laser collimater, keep the scope protected in a padded case, yet despite my TLC cannot even get a decent view of Saturn's rings. Forget the details in the Orion Nebula!

If all you are interested in is the moon . . enjoy.

I opted for this telescope to get an idea of the quality of product Celestron produces before investing in a more high-tech and larger telescope.

Out of the box, there were parts missing and broken. Celestron wants you to call about product problems and not return merchandise. I tried calling tech support four times and was on hold for over 90 minutes each time before being disconnected.

I submitted a ticket on their website. That was over a month ago and still no answer.

The scope I bought was sturdy and quite heavy and still worked with the broken pieces. The directions required some medium skill, so if your not technically inclined, avoid this telescope. In addition, the telescope is difficult to maneuver and use so be prepared there as well.

But I would seriously encourage anyone interested in a telescope to do thorough research on the different manufacturers before settling on a Celestron. I'm not giving this scope a poor rating, but if I had any idea about Celestron's customer service, I would have NEVER considered them in the first place. Buyer Beware!!

This is a great little beginner scope. Most entry level scopes at this price range are junk but this one holds its own. 5 inch Aperture for under 150 bucks is very reasonable. I saw the same scope on several other websites for similar price, however most were charging at least $27 for shipping or more. I got this little number for $148 and free super saver shipping and still received it in 3 days. Two day shipping from some of the other companies I looked at cost over $50 so all that being said you can't complain about the value.

As for assembly I have noticed some reviews for this product stating it was difficult to assemble and parts were missing and/or broken. I must say I was fortunate not to run into any of these problems. I was able to assemble everything in about 20 minutes and this is my first experience with an equatorial mount. everything fit together logically and I didn't require a manual to put it together. It was a case of open the box containing the next part,look at the picture on the box, and slap it on and move to the next piece and so on. Once assembled it took about another 10 minutes to balance the scope on the mount. This I used the manual for since as I mentioned before I have never used an equatorial mount. The Manual could have been a little more detailed for a beginner like me, but it wasn't exactly tedious either. Performing the Polar Alignment was a snap. The Hardest part was trying to find something to keep me occupied while I waited for the sky to get dark.

Navigating the sky using the included software was easy and straight forward. My wife and I were able to navigate to the moon, mars, and Saturn very easily. Deep Sky objects are still difficult currently but I am sure this will improve as the Phase of the moon begins to cooperate more.

The only cons I have to note is the quality of the 4MM eyepiece, Barlow lens, and finder scope, which are kind of worthless but these are items that are subject to preference anyhow. These are usually the first things people upgrade on their scopes. It is almost expected nowadays for these items to be of poor quality. You can't buy a telescope for 150 bucks and expect it to come with high precision eye pieces any more than you can expect to buy a car for $9,000 and expect leather seats, power windows and a moon roof. Most good eye pieces sell for about 50 bucks or more so it only makes sense that you are not going to get top notch eye pieces that are going to cost more than the total price of the scope.

Overall a good investment if you want a good entry level scope that won't break your bank and are willing to upgrade a few things somewhere down the road, this scope is a winner.

This is my first telescope i bought. It was easy to assemble, only took about 10-15 min. The power is good for a beginner. You can see jupiter's moons and the shadow on venus. If you buy this telescope i suggest getting a new barlow lense because the one that comes with it is terrible. Also get a new finder scope. It may look cool but its a piece of junk.

The bottom line is that it is an overall good telescope

I have absolutely zero background with telescopes but was able to get this one together and take a nice look at the moon. Out of the box, it was straightforward to assemble. Because it was already dark, I didn't take the time to align the little finder scope but I still managed to focus the big guy on the moon and a few stars. The view of the moon was pretty solid, in my opinion.

When viewing planets and stars - even using the highest magnification objectives included - the scope vibrates unless you are very still (and maybe hold your breath) so the image bounces wildly. Also, the stars don't seem to magnify to a size that is really more interesting to view through the telescope than they are with a naked eye.

On another good note, this scope makes it very easy to track a star across the sky as the Earth turns. It only requires the turn of a single knob.

Basically, I think this scope is fairly solid given the price. I'm sure I could spend 10X the money and get almost everything I could hope for from a telescope but I'm happy with this one.

I purchased this scope w/ airline rewards. I had a beat up old scope that was no good so I decided on the 127eq. It is an excellent first scope for people who want power w/ a learning curve. It is pretty easy to assemble. I suggest reading up online as to how to use the stand/mount properly. All you need is your latitude and to know which way is North.
Also it is very important to align the spotting scope properly. That can take 30 min, but once it is done it is good, just don't bump it. It comes with the perfect assortment of lenses, whether you are looking for saturns rings or the moon. The 3x barlow is a great compliment to the 2 included lenses.
Mine also came with software called The Sky version 5 which is a great program that allows you to figure out what is where and when.
Negatives..I think, as far as I can tell, the counter weight is not heavy enough so it seems at times the scope is too heavy for the counterweight. You can 'feel' the weight of the scope as you search the sky.

Bought in Sept09 from a different site. Paid $127. No prior experience with astronomy or telescopes but I've wanted one my whole life. I am a technical person (work with and repair mass spectrometers for a living). I only provide that info so you understand that this isn't the easiest thing to get in to. You have to want it. Try to read up on how to use a German EQ mount before you start. It will pay off quickly if you do. I've had trouble with numerous things but have always been able to make it work to some degree and it gets way better with more experience. In my opinion the EQ127 is a great scope for the price. Yes, the finder stinks, the eye pieces you have to choose from stink (only the 20mm is really useful), the mount and tripod aren't great but they work. What did you expect for $100 or $150? Bottom line is that it works and is not a piece of junk. Jupiter and it's moons are easy. The moon is insane (much better with some shadows when it's not full). If you try to view it when it's full or mostly full it will practically blind you because the scope gathers so much light. You will want/need to spend another $200-$300 on accessories like eye pieces,filters, and a collimator to really get into the hobby but this is a great starter set in my opinion. The eye pieces you buy in the future will fit most more expensive scopes. Concerning customer service and robustness....I thought my original EQ mount was broken after a month and a half. I opened a ticket via email with Celestron. They told me it would be $45 to send a replacement. They sent part of of what I needed. I emailed them again. They sent me an entire mount without asking for more money. It turns out it was all my fault. There were adjustmets that I could have made that would have fixed the problem with the original mount. Yes, they should have asked the right questions but didn't, the bottom line is that it's fixed. It took a month. So what. BTW, 2 days ago I tripped and fell on top of the scope and tripod when I was moving it. I weigh 225lbs. It still works. I guess it is pretty tough and can withstand a fall to the ground (;) Now I'm sure I need that collimation tool more than ever.

I am very new at astronomy and I didn't want to spend too much for a telescope. And for what I paid for this, I am extremely satisfied. It's pretty basic and I will need to buy some additional items like filters and different lens, but that is fine. My boyfriend and I have been using it pretty regularly and even used it to look at the lunar ecplise last month. Maybe some day down the road I will upgrade. But for now, I am very happy with my purchase. And unlike the others, I received all parts in an undamaged box.

This telescope is made in China and it lives up to the poor reputation China has recently established for many of their products. I've had three telescopes over the years, prior to buying this one (one reflector and two refractors). All the previous ones were smaller and less expensive, but provided much, much better images. I've checked and rechecked the collimation and it's dead-on. Saturn appears as an elongated blurr, better in the 20 mm eyepiece, but much worse than I've ever seen in my earlier telescopes. Mars shows up very fuzzy with no definition. The craters of the moon near the center of the field look reasonable, but the ones nearer the outer edge of the field of view are out of focus.

I tend to believe that this might include a cheap spherical mirror rather than the necessary parabolic one. The focusing is not fine enough and the mount is very unsteady when trying to focus. The finder scope is very cheaply built and requires realignment every time I attempt to use it. Additionally, according to my calculations, only the center portion (approximately three inches) of the five inch mirror is effectively used since the 1000 mm focal length is about 40% longer than the optical tube (much of the light reflected from the primary mirror completely misses the diagonal mirror). It looks like they had an after-thought about packaging the product and installed corrective optics in the base of the focusing tube to be able to build a shorter telescope and package it in a shorter box. I'm very sorry I bought this telescope and I'd be very ashamed to sell it to someone else. I'll be watching more closely for where products are from, and will avoid chinese-made goods until they prove themselves to be able to provide reasonable quality in what they make.