Celestron PowerSeeker 50AZ Telescope - Manual Alt-Azimuth Telescope for Beginners - Compact and Portable - Bonus Astronomy Software Package - 50mm Aperture

OpticsDecent quality optics. The light gathering capacity is average due to 70mm aperture which is in line with the price. With 20mm eyepiece (35x magnification), image is good and sharp. With 4mm eyepiece(175x magnification), image is softer and not bright. Finderscope is good enough with crosshairs. The Barlow Lens I received is pretty much useless. Chromatic Aberration is present but it's very much expected in a refractor in this range.Jupiter's band and moon can be seen. Saturn's rings can be seen. Moon's craters are vividly visible, as evident int he pictures attached.TripodThe tripod itself is good enough for the weight of telescope. The mount is shaky and had lot of free play. The altitude fine adjustment screw mechanism has free play too. But not a deal breaker at this price and casual usage. I put a dry heavy towel over the centre of telescope to dampen out the vibrations.Overall it's a decent telescope for the price. Definitely lets you see so much farther than you could see with a similarly priced binocular. The Light gathering capability ie not great but that's not a problem in daytime terrestrial viewing. If you can worlk around it's shortcomings like poor mount, etc, it's a useful optical instrument.

This is a great telescope for a beginner. Without trying too hard I was able to see Jupiter and its moons(they appeared to be small dots) and the rings around Saturn. You will really get nice views of the moon that you just can't see with the naked eye. The best time to view the moon is when it is not full as the craters are more pronounced then.The telescope is incredibly easy to point as long as you have a reference point to begin with. I usually use a tree or high building then line an object in the sky based on the direction from the building or the tree.Stars appear as tiny dots but that is OK as stars are incredibily far away and this telescope is relatively cheap.It is very difficult for me to use the 4mm eye piece. The Barlow works but I don't really like how objects are displayed through it sometimes. The Barlow works best when viewing bright objects.Terrestrial objects are easy to locate and you can view objects that are many miles away. I never needed the finder scope much so I just took it off.My only problem with the telescope and the reason for 4 stars is that after locating an object and locking down all the bolts and screws, any slight touch of the telescope will cause the image to bounce around for a few seconds. This makes viewing difficult with small children.But all in all I highly recommend this telescope for beginners and casual astronomers such as myelf and my 5 year old daughter.

A proper review of the Celestron Powerseeker 50AZ.Many user have complained that the telescope is not good and they cannot see anything. This does not hold true. The telescope is good for viewing anything upto an apparent magnitude of 4. The finderscope is a bit difficult to align for beginners and should be done in day light for best results. The tripod is shaky so give it time to stabilize after adjusting the focus to see the object without disturbance. The barlow lens is indeed useful, people who complain that barlow wont focus is because they use it with the diagonal. The barlow is meant to be inserted directly into the optical tube and it focusses just fine. Learn to use the eyepieces well by considering magnification. For eg : you wouldnt be wanting to use the 4mm with a barlow of 3x as it would be a magnifaction of 400x which is well beyond the highest useful magnification. Understand the space well if you wish to see deep objects. Overall, this a good telescope with nice optical quality. The tripod could have been more better but given the price tag, it can be bearable. Also cool down the scope to outside temperature for atleast 30 mins before viewing sessions. This will reduce the aberrations to neglible. Quite a good product for beginners.

I cannot see anything from the lenses from day one but I ignored and kept the product as it is for long time thinking that I will be able to troubleshoot it on my own however it's not working. Can you arrange some technician who can fix it?