Why the StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ is perfect for a novice hobby astronomer9 Comments2 June 2020 | Admin
The telescope itself is exactly what you can expect from a Newtonian 114 reflector telescope from Celestron. Good build quality, very light (just under 5 kg or 10.4 lbs.) so it's easy to carry around. The tripod is in what I think is steel and for this price, this is a very good tripod, I have seen worse in this price range. For accessories, in the box you receive a decent 2X Barrow lens, a better than expected red dot finder scope that can be used to manually focus on objects when you are not using the phone. For the eyepieces, you receive 2 decent entry level eyepieces (10 mm & 25 mm). Here I would suggest buying a separate 15 mm eyepiece to cover the area in-between once you have some more experience. You also receive an accessory tray for the tripod mount where you can house the accessories. To summarize, if you are looking into getting into astronomy and want to buy something equipped with the latest technology and is slightly above entry-level telescopesin terms of what you get in a similar price range, I would gladly recommend StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ to anyone, novice or more experienced.
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Friend a question, can you see the rings of saturn with this telescope?
Yes, you will be able to see the rings of Saturn.
Here's what the manufacturer says:
"You can expect sharp, bright views of Jupiter's four Galilean moons, its cloud bands and Great Red Spot, the rings of Saturn, the trapezium in the Orion Nebula, and beautiful Pleaides Open Star Cluster."
Alright! Thanks for the good review. Helped alot!
Does it include the smartphone holder? Reason I ask is that the picstop site recommends buying a smartphone holder as an accessory but is probably just a dumb algorithm.
The Celestron Starsense models feature a dock for your smartphone that enables you to use the Free Starsense APP and use your phone screen to see what you are looking at, however, the phone docked in this position does not allow you to take images.
If you wanted to take photos you would need to buy a smartphone adapter and clamp that over the eyepiece to take photos.
So essentially you either need two phones or you dock the phone, find the location, then move the phone to the adapater over the eyepiece.
Another alternative for astrophotography, if you have a DSLR camera you can buy two accessories, a T-Ring and T-Adapter, you can then directly connect a camera and take photos via the telescope.
can you fit a camera to the telescope?
In all honesty, the required 'T' adapters fit, but we would not really recommend it for this telescope, as it would be difficult to balance (the camera) with this scope and mount due to the weight of the camera and adapters. A NexYZ Smartphone adapter and second phone would be better. For serious astrophotography, a more substantial EQ computerized mount would be a better option.
Hi,
I am a beginner and seeking something to see some planets, moons, etc. Does the telescope only function with the app, or the app is there just to assist in identifying what I am looking at?
The telescope will function with or without the APP. However, the APP will help you locate objects easily when manually moving the telescope using the mount.