CelestronReviews of celestron.com

18 months ago I bought a Evolution 6 Telescope. All good so far. 6 months later I added a sky sense camera to aid alignment. No matter where I used it the alignment almost always failed to work. I eventually got it working but had trouble focussing using the focus knob. So, I invested in a focus motor. I was told that Would be able to use the scope, the sky sense and the focus motor via my tablet using the sky portal. Once I managed to get it working, before the focus motor control tabs disappeared from my sky portal page. I contacted Celestron customer service who suggested I download the CMI firmwear update. I tried, oh how I tried!! It would download but my MacBook (important point) would allow me to open the files stat that it could not establish whether this programme carried a virus. I emailed customer support at Celestron UK only to be told the firmwear manager only runs on windows not on Mac book or other Apple products. This raised two questions. 1. It is no longer 1995 where Apple products were only available to the rich. 2. Why doesn't Celestron write a version of the CFM for Safari? This is 2025 and I have to get hold of a further device using this second rate operating system to update equipment less than two years old that IMHO should have the latest firmware installed. Celestron suggested I reinstall everything. I did , nothing changed

Bought a motor drive for a cool price of £159, got it out, controller broken out the box. OK must've been unlucky, bought another one returned the last one, wait a week. It has the exact same issue! The quality control for something of this price is completely unacceptable.

En mi experiencia son productos excelentes mientras funcionan, pero con una durabilidad/fiabilidad nefasta. Un telescopio lo tuve que cambiar en garantía porque se le estropeó el motor en tres meses, con un uso mínimo. El módulo wifi emitía una señal muy debil, pero a los dos-tres meses de uso dejó de funcionar. El sistema de alineción automático StarSense era maravilloso, funcionaba extraordinariamente bien…durante un año, en que dejó de funcionar. Son productos caros, muy buenos de calidad mientras funcionan, pero se estropean mucho.

I love my 9.25 Evolution, but trying to get any real help from Celestron isn't happening. They have had an ongoing issue for 3 years now about issues with their program called Celestron Firmware manager. It's required if you have a goto telescope. They haven't updated it to run with Windows 10 or 11. Some people are finding work arounds, but I had to go as far as to by a refurbished laptop that had Windows 7 on it. I was finally able to update my scope! Repeated emails to Celestron tech support did no good. They were either convinced I was doing something wrong, or they just didn't want to admit fault. You can search on Cloudy Nights and find several chains of topics dealing with just this issue. They are supposed to be the leading telescope manufacturer, but they don't even stand behind their own products.

In December 2019, my family bought me a Celestron NexStar 5SE Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope for Christmas. The last telescope I had owned was a 4” aperture, 700mm Greenkat Newtonian, which unfortunately sustained damage to the primary mirror and was therefore discarded. After several observing sessions with the 5SE, I decided to clean the corrector plate and eyepiece lens. As I started on the corrector plate, I noticed what appeared to be a kind of wheat-grain “husk” or similar, stuck under the plate’s retaining ring at about the front 10 o’clock position. In looking more closely, I discovered that this husk was not in fact outside but actually inside the tube, behind the corrector plate glass next to the plate’s support flange. ( On reflection, this came as no surprise really, as I had only then recently discovered that the telescope was made in China. Like many, I’ve historically had much disappointment with products made there. ) I contacted Celestron UK informing them about this and was surprised to be told that this situation was straightforward enough for me to rectify myself. Since this was a brand new and delicate piece of expensive equipment, I declined to do this, stating that as this was a manufacturing defect, I wanted it sorted under warranty. Afterwards, having received the tube back from Celestron, I noticed that they had in fact sent a new one, i.e., the serial number was different - so perhaps it wasn’t that easy to fix after all ! Then in November of 2020, I found that the “red dot” finder scope was beginning to perform intermittently when the rheostat wheel was turned. I reported this to Celestron who sent me out a replacement. However this one is monstrous by comparison and instead of the red dot, it shows a sort of wide set of red concentric circles which make it very difficult to slew on to the target star. I put up with this one for a while but then, on following an Internet tutorial, I had some success repairing the original. ( It worked for a while but sadly has recently begun failing again. Apparently the rheostat control knob slips past its own stop and this pulls on the wires. ) While I feel that the Go To function is good, I have to say that I have been fairly unimpressed with the over all quality of the imagery with the 5SE. When I think back on using the modest 4” Greenkat, I found that the Andromeda Galaxy core was very easy to see - the Celestron is somewhat indistinct by comparison ; M57, the Lyra ring nebula appeared as a definite smoke-ring shape while the 5SE displays it as a round blob. With M27, the Dumbbell Nebula, the Greenkat offered a view which had 2 distinct dumbbell shaped lobes while the Celestron’s image appears to be more circular. And even with the GoTo function, if the initial Sky Alignment isn’t absolutely spot on then a bit of hunting for the Globular Cluster in Hercules is invariably required. In other words, a 4” manual telescope which I owned over 30 years ago was in fact superior in clarity to what I have now. And yes, I know - 30 years is a long time eyesight-wise, but mine is pretty good. If this hadn’t been bought as a gift, I would have changed it some time ago. I couldn’t recommend Celestron products to any prospective purchasers. P.S. The moon looks quite good, but then it does so through a pair of binoculars.

My first time dealing with Celestron and unfortunately a bad experience. I felt the information on their website relevant to our purchase was blatantly misleading. My father wanted to surprise me with a telescope of my own. After much reading on their website, he decided to buy the Celestron TravelScope 70. That was a few months ago. Due COVID-19 lockdowns, I couldn't fly to visit my parents as originally intended, until recently. That is when I was surprised with a brand new telescope. I unpacked the package and "installed" the telescope. I tried observing a few objects with my father... Optics-wise, the product works relatively okay. There is some aberration under some circumstances, but otherwise optics are perhaps surprisingly okay for such a minimal scope. The tripod is not usable. The finding scope ("cercatore") is also barely usable. The eyepieces (20mm and 10mm) are fairly alright. The focusing mechanism is relatively poor, but it's mostly because of the even poorer tripod that the drawbacks of the focusing mechanism are felt - a better tripod would make focusing much pleasanter even with the existing mechanism. However... It is not the optics or even the equipment that make this a 2 star review (had that been all, this would have still been a 4 star review - considering the low price at which it is sold as I later found out). What makes this a 2 star review is the misleading information on Celestron's website and in their user manual for this scope. My dad, a complete beginner, believed the description on the site and was so looking forward to observing planets with me - perhaps his greatest dream. Celestron's website clearly states about this scope: "The Travel Scope can view the planets, moon, star clusters and brighter deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy at night..." The user manual of this scope goes a big step further - on page 13 it has a section titled "Observing the planets". Under this title, the following text appears: "You can see Venus go through its lunar-like phases. Mars can reveal a host of surface detail and one, if not both, of its polar caps. You may be able to see the cloud belts of Jupiter and the great Red Spot (if it is visible at the time you are observing). In addition, you will also be able to see the moons of Jupiter as they orbit the giant planet. Saturn, with its beautiful rings, is visible at moderate power." Reality however differs from these poetic descriptions very much. You can certainly not see planets with this scope (not to mention some of the other objects on their list). To make matters worse, Celestron even included a beautiful magnified picture of Jupiter in the manual - a sight you certainly cannot view with this scope. Same goes for an ultra-magnified moon view that surely couldn't have come from this scope kit. However - to be fair, you can get decent views of the moon with this scope (just not as magnified as the user manual portrays them). And probably also of the sun with appropriate filters. But you should be well informed that these are the main objects you can observe, other than terrestrial viewing. I think Celestron should have made sure that the info on their website is much more accurate. To say that you can "observe planets with this telescope" (or some of the other objects on their list), is just as true as if I were to say that I can "observe planets" with the naked eye. Technically, yes, you can observe them with the naked eye. But it is unfair to market a product with language - and pictures! - that suggest that this product would deliver much improved views in comparison to the views of the naked eye. And it is certainly not an improvement on our average binoculars... The fact that Celestron used such misleading information is bad enough with any kind of customer. However, especially seeing as this telescope is heavily marketed for beginners, who rarely have any clue about telescopes, I think Celestron should have taken extra care to stick with accurate information. They did not take extra care. It seems that they did not take any care at all, in fact, beginner or no beginner. Especially when marketing to beginners... Today's beginners are tomorrow's avid astronomy fans who will always upgrade. Shame to leave such a bad impression from the start! TLDR; optics are okay, definitely considering the price; information on Celestron's website is highly misleading though; make sure to read on independent third party websites prior to making any purchase. Personally, I would avoid making any purchase with such a company who uses misleading information as a form of marketing. It's a bad sign if you can't get sales by using honesty and accuracy in the info you give!

Bought a Celestron EdgeHD 8 and electronic focuser. Connected as per manual and focuser was struggling to turn despite following manual for not over tightening. It burnt out. I contacted the seller here in uk who were great and they replaced the focuser straight away. I also contacted Celestron for advise and got a “probably a duff unit” response. I Got another focuser and installed. This time i powered via USB only to play safe. The high current version of USB, Pegasus UPB high current port to ne precise. The focuser was still tight! Had to back screws of so far to get the original manual focuser smoothness that they became superfluous. in the end i had to make a 2mm shim to keep the focuser off the outer ring of the EdgeHD focus bearing. Note, everything was centred and aligned as per the user manual but no joy, only the shim helped. Well, heres the reason for the 2 star review, Celestron was contacted two weeks ago, I sent pictures and a detailed explanation. I got the stock auto response back that a rep will be in touch soon. That was two weeks ago. One week later i sent a chaser email and got no response al all. All in all pretty much destroys my confidence in Celstron, Pretty sad really! Br and Good Luck with there Tech Support.