Deals.Woot

I bought a Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ around August. From the pictures, it looks like the tripod on this scope is identical, minus the EQ/AZ distinction.

The refractor that I own is a very nice scope for the amount I paid (~$60), but the tripod leaves a lot to be desired. I've actually seen it nicknamed "ol' shakey" on some astronomy forums. The construction is fairly solid aluminum but some key pieces are plastic, and it's difficult to adjust the scope sometimes. In particular, fine adjustments where you've partially locked the view require overshooting the target so that when the plastic unflexes, the object is in the eyepiece.

The optics on mine are great, and Celestron is a good name AFAIK, but be warned, this is absolutely not a top-of-the-line scope, and the EQ mount will likely confuse anyone new to astronomy.

Not a bad deal. Thumbs up.

@rangerdoc: Have you been using it? What's the light pollution like where you are? I'm in a big city, but recently moved to a place with an unobstructed 180° view, and I'm scope shopping.

I'm concerned that 114mm isn't big enough to earn me a good look at anything but planets with the city lights around me.

And can you confirm the tripod concerns snoopjedi has experienced?

I'm looking at this scope, and this one:

http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/reflecting-telescopes/zhumelleclipse114withmotordrivetelescope.cfm?TID=ZHUP001&source=pjn&subid=42229

How far can you see with this in good detail? My son is showing interest in astronomy, but I want to get a scope that can see good detail, past say the moon.

@gypsydiva: I need to amend my previous comment. I was referring to the telescope that gypsydiva posted. As you can see at first glance they look the same and are the same price. The Zhumell scopes have good reviews. The Celestrons had some issues with the lenses or something. I can't remember the details from when I was researching what to buy, but I know I ended up staying away from Celestron.

To answer the other question. I'm on the edge of the city so light pollution isn't too bad. Everything seems sturdy to me. Go with the scope you linked to as that is the one I bought. Get the bundle for the good eye piece set as well. Plus, the filters are interesting to mess with. You will be able to see the bands on Jupiter with a few moons; the rings of Saturn, Venus and a couple nebulas. The nebulas are more like blobs, don't expect to have NASA quality photos.

Again, quick shipping from this site for a great entry level scope.

Ugh a short tube Newtonian! Bought one when the Discovery Channel brick and Mortar stores went out. This is a BAD design. A good "long tube" Newtonian consists of a long (over a yard) tube with a parabolic mirror feeding a small flat mirror called a diagonal which defects the beam into an interchangeable eyepiece. The commercial downsides of the long tube is that: it's long, and parabolic mirrors are expensive to grind. Thus, some lens design idiot (and marketing genius) came up with the "short tube newtonian" which consists of a cheap to make spherical mirror that focuses at a much shorter distance and a cheap Barlow lens assembly which doubles the effective length. The bad news is that this is a prescription for a combination of horrific optical aberrations which inherently blurs the image.
You can do much better with a long tube. Finally the aperture of the 'scope won't help w/ light pollution, while it collects more light, the ratio of pollution to good light is the same.

@robio: If you want to know what you can see, your best bet is to go out around the time you think you want to observe and see what's visible. Take a star chart or a laptop with Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/) installed and just try to identify what's visible.

Yes, a telescope or a pair of binoculars will let you view more than what's visible to the naked eye, but you need some sort of reference if you intend to "starhop" your way across the sky, starting at one bright visible star and working your way to dimmer ones.

Personally, I observe about 10 minutes outside Baltimore, and the heavy light pollution means I can't see anything less than 30 degrees or so above the horizon in that direction. This makes it a little difficult to watch rising features (eg. I was not able to view the Leonids this year because Leo did not rise above the shroud until about 3:30am).

Are there parks around you? Even a small hill away from bright lights can drastically improve viewing.

For those worried about light pollution, this will help (although it's about half the price of the scope)
http://www.telescopes.com/telescope-accessories/filters/celestronuhclprfilter125inch.cfm?RNtt=94123