Celestron Advanced C102-HD Telescope

The Celestron C 102-HD are now the Celestron C4-R 102mm objective (4inch) Refractor, 1000mm Focal Length. These are not an APO so do have some Chromatic Abberation, but as an F/10 is not too bad, will notice this color distortion only on brightest Stars and example bright planet as Jupiter. However the star images are near excellent, tight and compact. I find this to be one of the BEST Value Refractors on the market ! Wanted a Refractor so chose this one because of its relatively low price $399.00, is rated as a Serious beginner scope and certainly is ! Comes with a nice heavy duty mount, but the aluminum tripod is abit shaky, however does work. The best usable power at the standard 40x per inch gives you 160X very nice image on Saturn, Cassini Division plainly visible, even note band on the smaller planet itself. Jupiter is nice, again notice a soft color blue glow hue, but not all that bad to me, easily view the moons and already viewed a transit of a moon as well as its shadow. Brighter Deep Sky Objects are great, Open clusters as the famed M36, 37, 38 were loaded with bright jewel like stars, will not resolve as larger apertures but example does a better job than my ETX90 Autostar, the views tho very good in the ETX do not resolve as well as the 102mm ! I would have a very hard time on giving the edge to this one or the ETX90, like them both so not parting with either ! This one is not a portable but can move it short distances around the yard. The provided eyepiece is suprisingly good, gave nice 50X image as is 20mm. Could easily detect the Eskimo Nebula. The center 10 plus magnitude star easily seen at higher power. The finder is slightly small, could use 50mm. When conditions permit will give 50X or more per inch (over 200X), but 160X I find is more frequent, so you will want a 6mm to 7mm eyepiece. I have a 12.5mm eyepiece and a 2X barlow which gives the 160X, great for Planetary Views ! If you want a Value Refractor, this may be the one for you !