Celestron 22403 Inspire 100AZ Refractor Smartphone Adapter Built-In Refracting Telescope - Blue

Product Information

Aimed at beginners and those looking to upgrade, this 4-inch refractor is at its best with the moon and planets and comes with a lens cap that doubles as a novel smartphone holder for convenient astrophotography. The Meade Polaris 114mm Reflector Telescope comes with both a red dot viewfinder to more accurately pinpoint objects plus the bonus of a PC-only compatible Autostar Suite Astronomer Edition Software DVD. It is somewhat hard to actually center anything in the finder, or align it precisely, or keep it aligned with the telescope particularly well.

Saturn’s rings are easy to spot with the Inspire 100AZ, as is the Cassini Division within them and a few cloud bands on the planet itself, though they are not particularly colourful and appear as purely symmetrical strips. For purchasing this telescope, we highly recommend HighPointScientific, the largest telescope retailer in the United States. It will also lag behind more focused refractors that excel at getting views of high contrast things like the rings of Saturn. There’s also a “focus micrometer” on the side – a small window lets you see a dial indicating a number (between 1 and 20) which lets you “set” the focus, which at best could be used as an extremely counterintuitive reference to save half a second on focusing with individual eyepieces.As previously mentioned, this scope is severely handicapped by the provided Amici prism, a pointless gimmick which limits the sharpness, contrast, and maximum field of view with this scope A high-quality prism star diagonal such as the Celestron 94115-A Prism Star Diagonal is significantly more affordable than a top-notch dielectric mirror diagonal, and it eliminates pretty much all of the problems caused by the Amici prism supplied with this scope. This claims to provide a display of over 10,000 celestial objects that users of the tripod might like to seek out – and is more about building up the user's knowledge, rather than aiding operation of the tripod per se. That said, however, the 20mm eyepiece afforded much better views than the 10mm eyepiece, which was rather lacklustre. A wider view frames objects nicely, and gives good views of larger objects such as the M45 Pleaides Cluster.

Following the theme of this telescope, the Celestron Inspire 100AZ Refractor can see a little bit of everything. Then there is the educational side, which is learning about the objects that you are tracking and locating. Uranus and Neptune are unfortunately rather unexciting with the Inspire 100AZ-they’re difficult to distinguish from stars, their disks are so small that they are barely resolvable, and their moons are simply dim enough to be well out of reach of a telescope with only 100mm of aperture. You won’t quite be able to resolve globular star clusters or see much in the way of detail in galaxies, even under dark skies, but the 100AZ can still show you the entirety of the Messier catalog and a wealth of detail on the Moon and planets.Mars’ polar caps and a dark marking or two will be visible, as will be any dust storms that occur on the planet.

All in all, this is a great accessory kit that gives you two eyepieces, a solid finderscope, and access to some helpful software. D4N's suggestion of the Rigel Quikfinder is also excellent if you don't get on with the supplied red dot finder, but try it first. A Rigel Quikfinder is essentially just a superior version of the StarPointer Pro and attaches to the tube with adhesive tape, so you could use it in conjunction with a 9×50 finder if you wish. are there any other lenses etc we can pick up that are compatible with this particular telescope that may help? I've not downloaded Stellarium but I think it's next on the agenda if it will help the little fella out.

It's actually part of the dust cap that you place on the front of the telescope's optics when it's not in use. It’s then a simple matter of pointing the Inspire 100AZ at a Solar System object (including the Sun if a suitable front-mounted solar filter is used), adjusting the focus and capturing a short video for processing in AutoStakkert! After an initial alignment with the main telescope, the red dot finder proved useful and, again, is an ideal addition for beginners taking their first steps into stargazing – especially if they’re learning how to find objects by star hopping with a star chart and the supplied red flashlight. Amici prism included with the Inspire 100AZ is one of the most crucial enhancements you can make to obtain the best possible views with this telescope. This telescope features in our lists of the best telescopes for beginners, the best telescopes for astrophotography, best telescopes for kids and the best budget telescopes Celestron Inspire 100AZ refractor.

The icing on the cake is its clever lens cap, which turns into a smartphone holder for astrophotography, which instantly gives it another dimension. It also comes with a StarPointer Pro finderscope and also a 90º image erect diagonal, which makes it more convenient and comfortable to view objects at the zenith. The altazimuth mount is perfect for beginners because it allows you free fluid motion to look at and try to find whatever you like. The Inspire 100AZ works like a 114mm or so reflector because it doesn’t have any mirror surfaces that reflect light or anything in the middle that gets in the way. The Inspire 100AZ has an achromatic doublet objective lens with a generous aperture of 4 inches, the largest in the Inspire range.Thanks D4N for the software info -I may well look into recording and editing with the diddy dude once he's got started. The Popular Science by Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 100AZ uses the same optical tube and includes the same accessories as the Inspire 100AZ, but with an improved alt-azimuth mount that has slow-motion adjustments – further aided by Celestron’s StarSense Explorer technology to make aiming the telescope even easier.