Home > Consumer Reviews > Celestron 21045 114mm Equatorial PowerSeeker Telescope

A neighbor couple got this telescope, used it a couple of times, had trouble operating it, and it sat for 2 years collecting dust. They are novices with telescopes and recently asked me to look it over. I found some errors in assembly and fixed them, and also used Celestron's inexpensive collimator tool to find that it was out of collimation. The manual had a crude collimation method of using the reflection from your eye, and then mentioned that you can buy the tool if needed (it is needed). The optics produce excellent images with the 20mm eyepiece - no problem there, except for a poor finderscope mounted on a wobbly / hard-to adjust plastic mount. Some others report a wobbly equatorial mount, and I noticed the same thing. The shaft that goes in through the center of the RA setting circle has way too much play. To fix most of that, you will notice two nuts that connect the RA Slow motion control worm threads up against the gear behind the RA setting circle. Loosen the two nuts some with a small wrench, and use a woodworking clamp (with masking tape over the clamping surfaces to avoid marring the mount finish) to tighten the worm gear up against the main gear and re-tighten the nuts. Don't tighten so much that it is hard to move the slow motion control. Teflon lubricant or light worm-gear grease helps a lot with smoother operation. This will take virtually all of the wobble out except that caused by the tripod. Also, because of the play in the main RA bearing, you will still notice some circular racking up and down when you change the direction of the slow motion control. This play could be reworked by a machinist, but that's likely too expensive to have done. The finderscope and its mount should be discarded for a better optical finder/mount with illuminated reticle or an electronic finder like Celestron's or Telrad's. If you have a hard time locating objects, you are probably going to keep the telescope in the closet. Odd that the manual doesn't explain polar alignment or how to use the setting circles - not helpful for a novice. You at least need a good finderscope to do either, or just to locate objects visually. Various websites cover those subjects pretty well. I have not tried the setting circles yet for accuracy.

This is a good telescope for starters. The assembly was pretty straight forward but I have found that the structure is not terribly rigid and the finder scope is almost impossible to set without moving the alignment off the object to view. Stability is awful, the least bump will move the alignment and pulling and pushing allows tremendous slew. Great views of near objects (if you can find them without the finder scope being aligned.) Not for serious sky watchers.

set up of the telescope is a breeze. the instructions were clear and also had pictures for reference. it took me about 10 minutes to get it together. i see people complaining the tripod is "unstable" NOT TRUE! its called tightening it! problem solved.
the finder scope is made of plastic but hey, its not your main scope and look at what you paid for. the entire setup does feel cheap but think of it in terms of value.
the entire weight is manageable, not portable but not very heavy.
the direction adjustment knobs stick out way too far for what it does and it might get in your way if your not careful.
now, lets get too the good stuff. WHAT CAN YOU SEE???
my first target was the moon, it was clear and high detail, not a difficult task. i went onto jupiter, pretty much the brightest thing in the sky, you can barely make out the red and cream swirls it has and you can see bright spots around it which are the 6? moons. you cannot see jupiter up close even with double scopes (x20 normal plus the x3 add-on). the image isnt the clearest but hey, terms of value.
if you are serious about getting into astronomy, move along with a different telescope. if you are looking for something to have some quick fun with friends and family, this is it.

Itis a wonderful product with minimum cost. I have tried to and have been able to see some spot in the Moon.
Good product.

Celestron 21045 114mm Equatorial PowerSeeker Telescope

On my deck this telescope is somewhat shaky,
In a recent Readers Digest an article explained that ALL Telescopes are shaky to a point unless you set it up an solid ground, that took care of the shaky problem. Its hard to move everyday, with the tripod open its very difficult to get through a standard doorway, alot of work to get the legs folded up for every trip outside. the Optics is great, higher magnification is blurry but ALL telescopes do that...all in all? I say its a great star gazer!