This review is from: Celestron 21024 FirstScope Telescope
I’ve always wanted a light-weight telescope for some quick grab-n-go viewing. This is the ideal scope for that purpose. I was able to see the edge-on rings of Saturn under a light pole near my house at night. With a good Barlow, you can even see some details on Saturn.
On the first night I had the telescope, I also did some quick viewing of Mars and Venus. Venus was clearly in a crescent shape, while Mars shows a small disk.
Overall, this is a great telescope for its price. I have another high-end telescope, but I find that driving to a dark-sky site to utilize all the big-scope potentials could be troublesome at times. When you need some quick looking at an object, this is ideal.
The only problem I have with this telescope is its included eyepieces. They are Huygens eyepieces, not as good as Plossls. But if you have some other good eyepieces, you can easily substitute them. Also, I highly recommend getting a good Barlow for planetary viewings.
Overall, I really enjoyed this little scope. I have yet to bring it to a dark site to enjoy its wide-angle deep sky viewings of the summer milky way, but I’m sure it’ll be great.
However, if you want to stimulate interests in kids about astronomy, you might want to consider slightly larger telescopes like the Orion XT6. This is more for people who’re already familiar with astronomy to just get some casual observations done at home.
