After it arrived, we tryed to put it toghether and found out that one of the two brackets that mound the lens on the tripod were missing.

My daughter in law has offered to contact the company. However this was a major disapointment.
Rating: 1 / 5

its very bulky and hard to line up but for the money you can see good detail through the 5 inch newton reflector mirrors
Rating: 3 / 5

Ok. I don’t know how you guys are doing it.

I assembled the telescope ok with the supplied directions. I attempted to align the sighting scope with the mirror. It was way off and very difficult to adjust. It is so unhelpful that the spotting scope shows a world upside down and backwards. It constantly makes you move the telescope the wrong way to find what you are looking for.

I also had difficulty with the up-down (latitude) adjustment. Why are there two locks for that? If one is locked up you can’t move the other one. Not user friendly for fine tuning. Not intuitive to me.

I had no success finding a single object in the main viewer. I wasn’t trying to use the magnifying eyepiece.

If the spotting scope is no good and the eyepieces are no good, why have this thing?

OK, I am frustrated at the moment and will try again tomorrow. Other people have had better results so I will assume I just need more practice. I will change and delete this post if I figure it out.

BTW, I have no telescope experience but have read scores of books on astronomy and I know, sort of, where good stuff is and what it is. I found the Andromeda galaxy easily in binoculars, but couldn’t even get the scope on the Orion nebula, seeing all the stars around it with the naked eye easily.

Later: Well, I have managed to find the moon and the Orion nebula. The spotting scope keeps getting bumped out of position so it is necessary to aim the whole telescope. With total manual controls, it is most difficult to find an object even if you are very close to it. But practice is helping. I don’t have especially dark skies, so the potential of my viewing is unknown. The moon looked pretty good. With the Orion nebula, I could resolve only 2 of the 4 central Trapezium stars, but some nebulosity was visable. It looks nothing like long exposures from a big mirror under dark skies, but better than my big binoculars and much harder to find.
Rating: 1 / 5

My husband loves anything about stars and moon, etc. For the first time in our 39 yrs of marriage I was able to order and hide this wonderful present. It was nicer then I expected and the cost very reasonable
Rating: 5 / 5

I ordered this telescope as a gift. When it arrived, my husband pulled it out and started assembling it. Missing is a spacer wheel and a screw for the tube ring (supposed to be 2 of each – we only received 1 of each). I contacted Celestron through their online tech/cust service and asked them to send the missing parts. Three days went by before I received a response saying that it might show there are 2 but they only include 1 and to assemble it with just the 1. I was not happy with the reply so I opened another service ticket with them and I’m still waiting to hear from them – that was 6 days ago. I am NOT HAPPY with the Celestron service. I hate to pack this thing back up and ship it back, but if they don’t resolve this by the end of the week, that’s exactly what I am going to do. (I am giving this product 1 star only because no stars is not an option.)
Rating: 1 / 5