Review - Celestron Powerseeker Accessory Kit 94306

                         I purchased the Celestron Powerseeker Accessory Kit to compliment my Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ Telescope.The telescope comes standard with a 3xBarlow lens, a 4mm, and a 20mm Erecting Eyepiece.The Powerseeker Accessory kit includes a 9mm Kellner,and 15mm Kellner eyepieces, and a blue, red, and neutral density moon filter, a microfiber cloth, and case.
                         The case is nice enough for the price.It is constructed of heavy plastic, with foam linings.The eyepieces are right away better than the 4mm that comes with a Powerseeker, in construction alone.The views the give are even better.The optics are visibly superior to both of the lenses I recieved with my telescope, giving much clearer views, and better contrast.Also the 9mm is much more suited to be used with the 3x Barlow than the 4mm with a scope this size.I would much rather have had the 9mm Kellner with the scope in place of the 4mm.Overall, both Kellner eyepieces were well worth the $30 price tag alone.
                          The filters included in this kit are a mixed bag.The red, and blue filters are well consturcted glass, and metal with the Celestron logo painted on the side, but the moon filter is plastic.The moon filter does work just fine though, and is extremely useful during a full, or nearly full moon.The blue filter works great for bringing out the features of Saturn, as well as the cloud bands of Jupiter.The red filter on the other hand is practically useless for telescopes smaller than 6 inches.Considering that the largest Powerseeker telescope offered is the 127mm/5 inch, I wonder why the offered a red filter in the Powerseeker accessory kit.I guess they thought it would be useful when you upgrade, maybe even help encourage you to do so, I don't know.
                           The only real downer in the kit is the plastic moon filter, but as I said before, the two eyepieces are worth the price of the kit on their own.The kit is worth every penny, and I would definately recommend it if you own a small Celestron telescope.The kit is available on Amazon for $24.95.Thanks for reading.

The Black Cricket Observatory Project

                         

                            We have begun raising money to build a small observatory in Southern Ohio.We need to raise money for a new telescope, as well as imaging devices.We have opened a few crowd sourcing web pages, and will probably add a few more in the near future.The first of these website is linked at the bottom of this post, and on the side of this page as well.Please help us educate the public, perform legitimate scientific observations, and acquire stunning images of our Universe.

                      Donate to the Black Cricket Observatory Project

Review - Celestron Universal Digital Camera Adapter 93626

                                  The Celestron Universal Digital Camera Adapter is used to mount digital point-and-shoot cameras to the focuser for imaging through the eyepiece.The retail price for the adapter is around $34.95, but if you shop around on Amazon, and Ebay you can sometimes find them as cheap as $25 new in package.
                                   The mount it well built, and very solid, but the padding on the part the attaches to the eyepiece seemed thin, so I added piece of ultra thing, foam rubber tape to the top, and bottom of the mounting bracket.The only downfall to the mount, which is stated in the manual is that not all cameras will work with it, although most do.Every camera I have tried on it have mounted good enoungh to shoot through the eyepiece, some better than others.I have found that digital cameras with a zoom that does not extend the lense from the base of te camera more than an inch are best.For example, my mothers Kodak Easyshare CD1013 mounts very well and can zoom in and out with plenty of room.My Panasonic DMC-LZ3 mounts  correctly but the zoom can only extend a fraction of the cameras capability before colliding with the eyepiece, so it seems the cameras on the lower end of the price range are more suited for this mount.
                                   Planetary, Lunar, and Solar images are all fairly easy to accomplish with this mount, though you need a Solar Filter to view te sun of course.I have not managed to successfully capure an image of any deep sky objects, such as Galaxies, or Nebulae.This may be attributed to the fact that every point-and-shoot camera I own, or have seen are only capable of 60 second exposures.The Kodak Easyshare I have been using only offers a 30 second exposure, and has only managed to capture the bright stars in and around M42/NGC1976/The Orion Nebula, which is by far the brightest nebula in the Northern Hemisphere.Bighter open clusters may be a possibility, though I have not tried to image on yet.
                                   The images I have taken using the mount should by far be the biggest testament of the quality of the mount.The first image was taken on the night of the Harvest Moon, and was selected with as one of 14 featured on Space.com.The second image is a mosaic of 8 images taken on July 4th, 2012.I am personally very happy with with the mount, especially for the price, and is a great item for someone new to astrophotography who wants to give it a try without making a big investment.The images below were taken with the Kodak Easyshare CD1013 that I mentioned above, mounted to a Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ Reflector, using a 20mm lens.Each image was edited for clarity.Thanks for reading

Review - Celestron Motor Drive 93514 for EQ Astromaster and Powerseeker Models

                               I purchased Celestron Motor Drive for the Powerseeker 127EQ Telescope a while ago, this review was original written for my old blog.The installation process was very easy and took around 10 minutes, from start to finish, and I read the entire instruction page.Celestron included an allen(Hex) wrench, and a phillips head screwdriver, but no flathead which is also required for the installation.I wonder why they go through the trouble of included only two of the three tools required, but most people have a flathead screwdriver.
                               I have spent the last few days testing the drive.The tracking is tricky to get set accurately, but after a few minutes I was able to stabilize.This is something i have found easier each time I have used the drive.The construction of the drive seems very solid, but it is not very heavy, and does not add any weight to the telescope.I have used the drive for around eight hours, and the battery that was included still has juice.Though it is not specified in the instructions, I would not suggest using the RA slow motion cable while the motor drive is attached, as I feel it may strip the internal gears.
                              Overall I am very pleased with my purchase, and would recommend this product to anyone with a Celestron Astromaster/Powerseeker telescope interested in tracking.I have added an image of Jupiter that I captured on August 26th, 2011 at around 2:00am.I used registax to process the raw video, and was surprised to find three moons had shown through.I believe they are from left to right - Ganymede, Io, and Europa.I am sure that the ability to track, and capture many times more frames than before is the reason for this.Next week I plan to modify my Logitech Quickcam Pro 3000 for long exposures, in the hopes that I may be able to capture galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae.I will write a review on this as well, and show where to find the instructions for such an endeavor.Here is the Jupiter image, and as always, thanks for reading.

                       Sorry this one is a bit blurry, it was dark in this room so i needed a longer exposure and I was a bit shaky.

Review - Celestron Powerseeker 127eq Newtonian Reflector 21049

                                 I wrote this review two and a half years ago for my original blog, before starting the Black Cricket Observatory Project, and thought I would add it, and other reviews to this blog considering the old one will soon be taken down.I hope they are helpful to some first time buyers.
                                 I chose this model for my first quality scope for three reasons, reasonable price per aperture size(127mm/5in.), included a 3X barlow lens, and Celestron is a established optics brand for 50 years.
                                 The Celestron Powerseeker 127eq telescope comes packaged with tripod, mounts, 20mm/4mm/3X barlow lenses, software, and instruction booklet.I purchased mine from Amazon, and recieved it in perfect condition.I had the entire telescope assembled in 20 minutes, with help from an online video to be safe(found on Celestron.com).I will say for the setup of a new Newtonian Reflector, you should purchase a collimation tool of some type, laser collimation tools are the most accurate.
                                 I have not purchased a tool yet, so I built a homemade on and have managed to get the collimation close.Once set up the scope weighs around 30 lbs., but is pretty easy to just pick up and move.The very first night I was stunned to look at Saturn through it, the quality of the optics is exceptional for the low price.The included 3X barlow lens is a lower quality lens, but almost all other comparable telescopes do not include a barlow lens.I also think the 4mm lens is a fairly useful lens, I have managed to get a good focused look at Saturn using the 4mm with the 3X barlow, though with some abberation, and my scope is still a bit out of collimation.Many others have complained about this eyepiece, I wonder if there scope may have needed collimated.
                                 You will need to align the finderscope with the main scope, but this is simple to do.The Celestron Powerseeker 127eq is a quality scope for a tight budget, with a rarely included barlow lens, constructed solid, and looks good to boot.I would definately recommend this scope to anyone looking for a powerful starter scope.Thanks for reading

Comet Ison begins to Shine

                     Over the past few weeks I have been waiting for my first glimpse of Comet Ison.I live in a small town, and have a small bit of light pollution to deal with.Using my telescope I was able to see the comet a month ago, but i have been waiting for binocular visibilty to begin taking piggyback images of Ison.I acquired the my first faint images of Comet Ison on the morning of October 25th, pictured at the end of this post.The condition's at my Southern Ohio observatory have been cloudy over the ast few days, and will continue like this likely until November 2nd.At that time, acquiring images of Ison should prove a bit easier, and I will continue to post them as it closes in on the sun.Here are two images of Comet Ison at different zoom levels, and edited to bring the comet out a bit.Mars is at the top, Ison is right from center in the first image, and centered in the final.Thanks for reading