Celestron 21041 PowerSeeker 60AZ Telescope

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Something to give the best contrast lunar and planetary views at the high end of magnification my little scope can comfortably handle. My usual seeing conditions aren't great. Thinking 100x is maybe a good range to aim for, so maybe 6mm but maybe too small exit pupil?

Celestron - Telescopes, Telescope Accessories, Outdoor and Celestron - Telescopes, Telescope Accessories, Outdoor and

I have some doubts about the coatings of the objectives. There seems to be a fairly strong set of reflections when shining a headlamp down the tube. I don't recall other scopes giving such an impression, but I will need to explore this some. A good to very good 60mm is capable of viewing a lot more objects and revealing more detail than folks think. You just have to spend more time at the eyepiece to reveal all the detail, compared to a bigger aperture, which is more in your face. Obviously you aren't going to see something that is theoretically impossible given the aperture. The 60mm f/12 objective was in mint condition (after a cleaning). Optically, the scope performs beautifully. It makes use of its full 60mm aperture. It's essentially free from chromatic aberrations. The star-test patterns (using a 1st magnitude star) were absolutely "beautiful". I've used Buttercup for solar, lunar, planetary and deep-sky visual astronomy -- and enjoyed every minute of my eyepiece time!TeleVue TV60 f/6 ED doublet: fantastic and compact scope, looked through a stunning sample, has a bit more CA than the slower aforementioned fluorite doublets. The behavior of the pattern on either side of focusis not that of simple coma or astigmatism. If they are present, they are masked by the chromatism.

Celestron PowerSeeker 70mm f/10 EQ Refractor Telescope Celestron PowerSeeker 70mm f/10 EQ Refractor Telescope

Seeing was pretty poor, and the mount is hindering simple testing, but using the mount in alt az configuration makes it workable. Rigel's companion is visible even when the CA is aligned with its PA. The same was true when splitting Castor at 100x atzenith. The spurious disks on the latter were probably elongated about 50% (a 3:2 oval for each) with a dark lane in between and the color of the primary spilling red on the secondary andviolet to the other side of the primary. It's a mystery to me, why so many of the cheap 60mm makers decided to make a complete mess of an eyepiece as simple and cheap as the huygenian. If made correctly, a huygenian, when used on a long focal length achromat, can be a very sharp and enjoyable eyepiece to use, with a moderately wide 40° - 50° AFOV. It has only two single lenses, but apparently it was beyond the capabilities of budget telescope makers at the time to even space those two lenses correctly and use the correct focal lengths. Sad. I have experimented with several similar entry level models. Almost without exception the objectives have been surprisingly good at any sensible high magnifications.Quite often the objectives are pinched due to the retaining ring being too tight. Forget the rest of the instrument though!. I have used them for solar observation and also built a binoscope with a pair incorporating a couple of monoculars for the eyepiece end. your 60mm might have not been f17, but even if it was a f13 which was very common, CA should have been quite controlled. At least future star testingwill be easier now that I have added rings to the OTA and don't have to rely on the unbalanced, shaky EQ1 mounting system. After the holidays I will see if I can get Celestron to send me a replacement objective.

I received the 60 f/15 scope today. Overcast and sometimes sprinkling, but I did get to point at some street lamps about 300 yards away, some other light poles, a cell tower and the mountains. Only tested up to 100x but I didn't notice anything amiss with the image. The mount actually seemed a little better than I expected. The scope might be useable on this mount with VSP's. The focuser seemed relatively smooth and tight for plastic. I have not tested to see how it handles an eyepiece and diagonal in the vertical though. A bit smaller still: the Celestron/Vixen FL55 S f/8 fluorite doublet, one of the best refractor optics I ever had or looked through: