Celestron 31051 Astromaster 130EQ-MD Motor Drive Reflector Telescope
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Celestron 31051 Astromaster 130EQ-MD Motor Drive Reflector Telescope with Celestron 94307 AstroMaster Eye Piece and Accessory Kit and other accessories!
Please read carefully all the information below, its not copy-and-pasted from other places!
This is a good starter-to-intermediate level telescope. Great views of Jupiter and Saturn. The photos in the listing are of the actual telescope I took just now, not stock photos.
In brief: (see details below for full details)
Celestron 31051 Astromaster 130EQ-MD Motor Drive Reflector Telescope. Includes all the standard original stuff that comes with it. This is 189 new on Amazon.Celestron 94307 AstroMaster Eye Piece and Accessory Kit. This is 47 new on AmazonVarious extra stuff, 5mm Lens and a home-made Microsoft LifeCam Studio Web cam attachment.
In detail:
Celestron 31051 Astromaster 130EQ-MD Motor Drive Reflector Telescope.
Includes:
Optical tube with attached sky pointer and tube ringsCG-3 equatorial mountcounterweight bar2 x 4.8 lbs. (2.2kg) counterweightsRight Ascension & Declination slow-motion cables10mm eyepiece 1.25Erecting image 20mm eyepiece 1.25The Sky Level 1 CD-ROMCD of instructionsQuickstart setup guideInstruction ManualOriginal Box and packing materialsOriginal setup toolsSpare batteries for Motor Drive and Sky Pointer.
Celestron 94307 AstroMaster Eye Piece and Accessory Kit
Includes:
15mm Kellner Eyepiece6mm Plssl Eyepiece2x Power Lens with T-threads80A Blue Planetary Filter25 Red Planetary FilterMoon FilterMicro Fibre Cloth (Not the original one)Plastic carrying case with foam
Various Extra stuff:
5mm Plssl Eyepiece get even more magnification. This is 18 new on Amazon.Headmounted torch with RED LED and white LED for use when out on a dark night. Use the bright white LEDs for setup, then switch to the dimmer RED LED mode to help keep your night vision.Webcam this I made by using another 2x Power lens and a stripped-down Microsoft Life-Cam Studio Webcam (1080p video). This allows you to see what you are looking at through the telescope on your laptop. Works without additional drivers using Windows 10s built in Camera App. When used in conjunction with the motor drive, you can take videos of the planets easily, for stacking purposes. Note that this is something I built myself from a brand new Microsoft LifeCam Studio (30), with some of the housing removed and mounted into another 2x power lens adapter like the one in the accessory kit. Its not the best ever webcam/telescope adaptation, but it does work. Maybe with a bit more care it could be improved. I think for Windows 7 / 8 you may need to download drivers from the Microsoft site, I only used Win 10 for this.
Telescope Specifications:
130mm diameter mirror Newtonian ReflectorFocal Length 650mmf/5CG-3 Equatorial mount with Motor Drive unit to keep objects in view as the Earth rotates.Pointer scales for easy finding of objects in the sky by RA and DECSky pointer to quickly align the telescope on something of interest.The telescope with the tripod weighs 11kg, but is fairly easy to move even when fully set up.The boxed telescope for shipment weighs 17kg.
When setup, it occupies about a square meter of ground space and is up to 6 feet tall depending on orientation.
Calibration:
This telescope was calibrated a few times using a Laser collimator, so its in pretty good shape. The Sky Pointer is also pretty much spot-on at the moment, although this thing is a little difficult to use if you wear glasses like me.
History of this scope:
I bought this telescope with the accessory kit a couple of years ago from Amazon to view Jupiter and Saturn, both of which are easily done. The 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter are easily visible and also the atmospheric bands of Jupiter can be seen. Saturns rings are also visible (although not in detail, just the fact that it has them) The rings are quite good right now (End June 2017).
I made the Webcam thing after some research on YouTube and that worked quite well, allowing us to look at the same thing at the same time.
I also used a Canon T-Ring adapter to mount a Canon EOS 7D camera body onto the T-Ring adapter to take photos through the telescope. This T-Ring adaptor is for sale in my other listings.
Condition of Telescope and accessories:
Its all in good (even great) condition. When stored in the shed it was covered by plastic bags to stop dust getting in, and it was rarely used outside when there was dew in the air, so its in very good condition. There are two parts that are not good:
The Erecting eyepiece (like all lenses) has a soft rubber cupand this perished and fell off. Not entirely sure why only this one suffered, it does look different to the other Celeston lenses. Does not affect its use overly as its the weakest lens used for finding the objects in the sky.While experimenting with the Web-cam idea, I used some of the small lens-storage cups and caps as mounting items for other web-cams, these cups were cut and drilled. Eventually I found the MS Lifecam Studio which is a better fit, but the old lens cups were then discarded. This means that one or two of the lenses do not have their proper plastic storage cups. These lenses were always stored in bags in a box anyway, so does not affect their use, only their storage.
I think this is a great telescope to get seriously into astronomy with. Theres no point and shoot fancy computer to align, you have to learn about equatorial mounts, setting up the scope and using the scales to find objects you want to look at.but thats all part of the whole astronomy thing! The box says age 13 onwards, so its great for the budding young astronomer to get started with, and then it can take you into intermediate astronomy.
Please check out the reviews on Amazon of this telescope, and take a look at the many YouTube videos about how to setup and use this telescope, there is a lot of information out there.
Feel free to ask other questions or to get other photos if you need them.
Two reasons for sale: 1) My eyes are getting worse and this telescope is less easy to use with my prescription glasses; and 2) I need the space for other things.
To buy all these items new online would be 256. So this is essentially half price and includes postage:
Parcel Force 48 delivery within the UK is included in the price. The accessories and extra items will be posted separately as there is no space in the main telescope box for them. Local collection is also available (and preferred to avoid damage during shipping). Full packaging photos will be sent when shipped so you can be sure that the item is in perfect condition prior to shipping.
Category: Cameras and Photography:Telescopes and Binoculars:Telescopes
Location: Uckfield
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