I live in the north central region of the US near the Great Lakes. I have an engineering background and was a surveyor for over 10 years. Also, I'm an accomplished amateur photographer.

Overall a great starter scope. f/5 focal ratio is impressive. However, looks like Celestron cut corners in the basic requirement to locate any object, esp. R.A setting circle. Reading on RA setting circle wasnt making any sense when comparing it with SkyX astronomy software that comes with the...

Strong Construction

Difficult to Use

Local camera shop had it on for 1/2 price. Paid $170 CDN for it. well worth the price considering what you get. Wouldn't pay full price for it. Can easily hit the usual targets, Jupiter, Saturn, etc. still trying to get to nebula's etc. maybe too much light pollution.

excellent optics for price

finder is tough to aim to get close to objects

Good for a second telescope after that horrible refractor you got at some chain store.

Beautiful design - looks like a professional scope in many ways

Cheap eyepieces, wobbly tripod; Good for beginners

A winner in the budget category

Affordable; competant

CG-3 is not the sturdiest of mounts

Gets the kids out of the house (and out of my hair)! We bought this as a xmas present for our 2 kids. For the price we paid, we think the results are excellent (admittedly we aren't experts). Perfect for a young family.

Well let me start by saying it is not that easy to set up if you are inexperienced at these things - it takes a good 3 hours and there were things that didn't seem right. The screw to the one of the balancing weights failed to engage and the actual slow motion controls fail to engage at specific...

Bought this telescope for my daughter at Christmas. Put it together in 30 min. and we were off to view the moon. She is in Astronomy, so she knows where to look in the sky. Nice telescope, focuses well. It is manual, so it does take time to find the object, but this is okay for her. Thankx.

My wife bought this for me for Father's Day. For the money, I think the telescope is really great. The large aperature really captures light. Aligning and using an equatorial mount is hard. There are good youtube videos that really help you with alignment and use.

great aperture and light-gathering for the price easy enough set up

non-functioning equatorial mount poor instructions -- youtube will save you here.

This is our first scope and we are loving it. Nice crisp views with a 32mm eyepiece. I don't care for the supplies 20mm eyepiece or the star finder. Overall it's nice and I'm happy with the purchase.

Compact; Strong Construction

Heavy