Celestron ExploraScope 114AZ Telescope + $10 Kohl's Cash Expired

Hey Vamsich,

One of the major differences is the the red dot finderscope comes with the ExploraScope which is alot better than the black dot finderscope (hard to see at night) that people have been reporting comes with the PowerSeeker . There are also some other minor differences such as different focal length and aperture ratio (ExploraScope 1000mm f/8.8 vs PowerSeeker 900mm f/8) and Optical Tube Dimensions (ExploraScope 24" vs Powerseeker 35")

I owned a PowerSeeker 114EQ a while back, and even though the mount was different, the ExploraScope just feels sturdier and more modern.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Guys. This is the reason I love Slickdeals. Couldn't find this info anywhere online. Repped.

Eyepieces are at a minimum 3 glass elements, and both sides of each element need to be ground to a specific shape. A more typical cheap eyepiece will have 4-6 glass elements. Expensive eyepieces can have 10+ elements.

A telescope like this is one large mirror which needs to be ground to a specific shape, and one flat mirror. True the surface area of the large mirror is a lot bigger than the eyepieces. But that actually means you can use a larger grinding pad to achieve the desired curvature more quickly for the surface area.

So there's a lot more work involved making the eyepieces than in the telescope. The materials cost is just lower.


For a single motor to allow a telescope track, the telescope's mount has to be tilted to match your latitude. You need to set the rotational axis of the mount to match the rotational axis of the Earth, so rotating the mount cancels out the Earth's rotation.

The pics of the tripod for this scope is a simple altitude (up/down) azimuth (side-to-side) mount. To get one of those to track the sky, you need two motors (one for alt, one for az) following a computer program (since the speed each motor needs to run will depend on where the scope is pointed). Or if you use one motor, you have to tilt the tripod to match your latitude. That's not recommended because for most latitudes, the tripod becomes unstable (center of mass falls outside the tripod legs), and the whole thing can tip over.

You can buy a motorized wedge mount that fits between the tripod and the telescope, that does the latitude tilt for you. But that'll probably cost more than this scope.


The bird-jones type uses a spherical secondary mirror instead of the flat secondary a Newtonian uses. The flat secondary mirror means aligning the optics is just a matter of tilting the flat secondary so you can see straight down the tube, then pointing the primary mirror at the right spot. The spherical secondary in a bird-jones makes it nearly impossible to tilt it by eye so you can see "straight down" the tube. So they can be a pain to fix if the optics get knocked out of alignment.

Single-axis catadioptric scopes like the Schmidt-Cassegrains technically have the same problem. But their secondary is screwed in place behind a glass plate, where you can't accidentally move it out of alignment.

If you want something that can do double-duty as an astronomical telescope and a daytime spotting scope, get a refractor (long tube, look straight through it like a sailor's spyglass). They have great optics, but tend to be expensive because you're using lenses (see above comment about eyepiece elements and having to grind both sides) instead of mirrors.

If you want a cheap scope for astronomical use where wide views like the moon and globular clusters are the priority, get a Newtonian (eyepiece sticks out the side) or a Dobsonian (which is also a Newtonian, just the mount is different). They make it easy and cheap to build a big scope for the money. They tend to be a bit fragile (easy to knock the optics out of alignment), and their size can be a problem for children.

If you want a cheap scope for astronomical use where planetary observation is the priority, or for astro-photography, get a Maksutov-Cassegrain or Schmidt-Cassegrain. They have a long focal length for greater magnification, but the use of two curved mirrors allows them to fold that long focal length inside a short cylinder.

For astronomical use, a double fork mount on a wedge is best. There are some with a cheaper single-arm mount - those suffer more vibration. Next best would be a German equatorial mount. Nothing really wrong with them, just that they're heavy because they rely on counterweights to balance the scope being tilted off to one side. They do have more freedom of motion when pointed near the North pole. Alt-az mounts should be a last resort, although modern computers and digital stepping motors make them passable at tracking. Good enough for viewing by eye I'd say.

Make sure your expectations are realistic. You're not going to see anything resembling pictures from Hubble. Galaxies will just be a slightly fuzzy blob. Nebulae (if you can see them at all) will just be wispy grey - no color to them. You need to take timed exposures with a camera to draw out their color. Unless you're into studying the moon or sun (with a solar filter), or planetary observations (the 4 biggest moons of Jupiter are easily visible and move night-to-night, and Saturn is near full tilt so the rings are on full display for the next few years), or are into locating deep sky objects by their coordinates, or wish to do astro-photography, you will probably be disappointed. For the majority of people, I'd say a good pair of binoculars (7x50 or 8x50) and a web browser viewing hubblesite.org is better. The binoculars will give you a good sense if astronomy is something you want to get more into, building a cheap tripod mount for them is relatively easy, and if you find you're not that interested they can be used for lots of things during the daytime.

http://www.deepskywatch.com/Artic...scope.html