Review, "Celestron FirstScope"

Well, Celestron has gone and done it, made the heavens available to the average person on the street with their inexpensive, easy to use, well built scope.

Got mine yesterday, at just $49.99 US or $62.49 CAD, you just can't go wrong.

Look at the family on the box, they are frigging thrilled, probably because when they pulled the scope out of the box it was already assembled.

Just had to put the eyepiece in the eyepiece holder, total time 2 minutes, and that's with me popping nearly all the bubbles in the bubble wrap.

So what do you get for your money? You get the scope and 2 eyepieces giving you 15x and 75x magnification and you get to show people you have over for casual events to your humble abode awesome views of the Moon, Saturn, Mars, Venus as well as bright deep sky objects like star clusters from your light polluted backyard, who do you know that can say that?

Very portable, and as far as storage, store it in plain sight, you can see from above image how cute, yet professional it looks, you'll be the talk of your friends, family and neighbors. So it is inexpensive, comes assembled, can store it anywhere, looks cute, but what's it got under the hood?..... well nothing......it's not a car....duh. But what is does have is the ability to grab'n'go, no fancy set up time required, hey that makes a big difference, could be the difference between using it or not, and this is coming from someone, moi, that has had literally a gazillion scopes... well maybe not literally, but have had lots. I unpacked, assembled and was outside with the scope on my car trunk looking at the Moon, and...and imaging with my wife's little camera pointed at the eyepiece,(image below) total elapsed time, around 4 minutes!!

FirstScope First Image, 15x

FirstScope Second Image 75x

FirstScope and Canon 40D


I have not been approached by Celestron to do a review, all me, I thought I should tell anyone and everyone I can about this little guy, if you are looking for your first scope but don't want to spend a lot of money, this is the scope for you, I was very happy with the quality of the views of various heavenly bodies I pointed the scope at, including Saturn (which by the way is worth the price of admission alone). Astro-Nuts was with me trying it out as well, he liked it so much he went and ordered one.


Also available for this scope is an accessory kit which comes with 2 more eyepieces giving you 24x and 50x, a Moon filter, which allows for better imaging and viewing during a Full Moon, could have used that last night, a carrying case for your scope, a 5x24 finder scope and a CD ROM filling you in on the basics of astronomy, familiarizing you with stars, planets and constellations and gives you the ability to print off star charts, for only $24.94 CAD. Even though I still have a gazillion scopes, I chose this one for a quick Photon Phix and to take it with me in the car when going out of town, again grab'n'go, very cool, definitely 5 out of 5 stars.

I'll leave you with a little video of the FirstScope.