Celestron 21061 AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope, Blue
Celestron 21061 AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope, Blue
Manual Alt-Azimuth Mount
Locating celestial objects is a breeze thanks to AstroMaster’s intuitive altazimuth mount and pan handle. The telescope also features a sturdy, full-height adjustable steel tripod.
Portability
Grab and go! This compact, lightweight telescope is your perfect companion for star parties, camping trips, and impromptu garden observing sessions.
Objects to Observe
Quality, all-glass optics deliver crisp views of the Moon, the rings around Saturn, and Jupiter’s Galilean moons. Or explore beyond our Solar System—the Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, and more.
Better Viewing
Includes everything you need to get started with astronomy: two 1.25” eyepieces (20mm and 10mm), StarPointer red dot finderscope,erect image diagonal, and free Starry Night astronomy software.
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AstroMaster 102AZ | |||
| Aperture | 70mm (2.76″) | 90mm (3.54″) | 102mm (4.0″) |
| Focal Length | 900mm (35″) | 1000mm (90″) | 660mm (23.6″) |
| Focal Ratio | f/13 | f/11 | f/6.25 |
| Magnification (with included eyepieces) | 45x, 90x | 50x,100x | 33x,66x |
| Limiting Magnitude | 11.7 | 12.3 | 1.37 |
| Low Useful Magnification | 10x | 13x | 14x |
| High Useful Magnification | 165x | 213x | 240x |
| Assembled Weigth | 11.0lbs (5.0 kg) | 12.4 lbs (5.6 kg) | 14.1lbs (6.4 kg) |
| Weight: | 18 Pounds |
| Dimensions: | 38 x 13 x 10 centimetres |
| Brand: | Celestron |
| Model: | 21061 |
| Part: | 21061 |
| Colour: | Blue |
| Dimensions: | 38 x 13 x 10 centimetres |
| Origin: | China |
It’s a guaranteed level of quality. My first telescope was a Greenkat, had it at 10 years old (1980). It was nearly as good as this one for magnification. However this Celestron has a lot of play in all gimbles and moving parts. My Greenkat was solid and smooth, all metal parts on a small 1 foot tripod. The red dot pointer again has play, it shakes and sticks, good as a guide only. Do not expect radar missile weaponry accuracy, more toy like if you ask me. God knows what the other China imports are like as this is a known brand. Its simple and easy to set up and you can see a lot. But my old Greenkat from ‘Boots’ did nearly as good a job and was super solid. All the space pictures and headlines on the box are indeed there to impress. It has lost a star (reviewwise) because sadly the UK made better telescopes 45 years ago for a lot less money. I wonder why I paid 130 pounds more, maybe the others are junk or Celestron is overrated and overpriced, one of these facts must be true.
Amazing Telescope!
Did a lot of research on the best telescope to buy, low maintenance with excellent images. Refractor vs Reflective was the question Refractor won hands down when you put everything together to get a well-rounded scope on a budget.
Also bought a filter so as to take pictures of the moon, 2X Barlow lens and a 3X. Settled with the 2X as that is perfect. I also added a zoom lens where I can go from 7-24mm.
My daughter loves this thing and we’re always sky watching together.
The image below was taken using my iPhone 15 Pro after I adjusted the exposure perfectly. It was amazing taking this detailed picture with such a simple setup.
We have also seen Jupiter and 4 of its biggest moon, Mars, Venus and Saturn. Something happens to your spirit and mind when you see them for the first time with your own eyes. It’s almost like they’re whispering something to you like Hey! we were here the whole time. WOW! We forget we live in space and rotate around a star (Sun).
What we do is pay attention to when objects are closest to the earth to get the most out of this telescope.
Worth every penny. Now I want to buy the $1400 8SE from the same company since I want something that gathers more light, yet still small and easily portable. Dobsonian Reflector equivalent is a no go.
Superb solid simple scope
Brilliant telescope, simple to use with great optics. Can’t fault the telescope, The only problem is the tripod it comes with, which is not good for astronomy, sell it and use the money to buy a equitorial mount and you won’t be disappointed.
4 months of using this telescope and it is still amazing
If you are looking for a good quality, beginners/introductory telescope, this is definitely what I recommend! It is easy to assemble, easy to use and absolutely exceptional value for money. I bought this for my partner for a Christmas present as we both love space and stargazing. We have seen some amazing views of the moon
I recommend buying a 2 and a 5 Barlow lens to go with the 20mm and the 10mm eyepieces! You can find them inexpensive on Amazon too.
The tripod is very simple to get set up which is great when you want to quickly get it set up. The tray is very helpful also and so is the red dot finder.
A fault I do have is that the screws don’t hold the scope tightly so when you are looking into the telescope, you have to hold it and adjust it often, which can get a bit frustrating but it’s only a minor issue for something this great at such a great price.
*The images are taken using the 10mm eyepiece with a 2 Barlow lens*
4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful and usable piece of ki
Used for Stargazing. Easy to assemble. Light piece of kit.
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice present for my so
Very good telescope for amateur the quality is very good not too heavy.
beyond my expectation!
it is a great scope for beginners! I bought it for my 5 yr old son who could see the moon and its craters in his first try!!
super easy to setup, looks sturdy and made of quality materials. Displacement not sharp so I guess it will be a good challenge to visualize smaller objects such as Jupiter or Saturn. we only looked at the moon which was amazing! very sharp image ( you do not see same quality in the picture attached taken by my cellphone).
all in all highly recommended for beginners who look for sth that motivates you in astronomy.
UPDATED:
we bought this in last winter so no chance to try it regularly (winter=coldddd), until now (May 2021) that weather is pleasant. and now we started to discover this little powerful scope! the second picture I uploaded is taken with my phone just through the eyepiece! the same way and the same phone I used for the first picture but as you get used to the scope and better adjust it you can enjoy it more and more. the picture quality is that good that I decided to buy the T ring adaptor for my Nikon SLR camera to mount it on the scope and take even better quality pictures. also I bought a set of eyepieces with different magnification plus a set of filters to level up our sky watching experience. all said, I recommend this scope 100%.
Excelente telescopio!
Cuando me decid a comprar un telescopio estuve investigando si debera comprar un reflector o refractor, y este es una gran opcin ya que los refractores no requieren el mismo mantenimiento que los reflectores.
Es muy fcil de montar ya que viene prcticamente armado.
si como yo estn empezando en esto de ver el cielo, se los recomiendo ampliamente, ya despus pueden comprar otros lentes y filtros para que disfruten ms pero as como viene te diviertes un montn.
It’s easy to assemble and quickly learn to use. It comes with 20mm and 10mm eyepieces. I bought a 2x Barlow lens to improve magnification. I was able to see the rings of Saturn along with a couple of moons very clearly with the 2x attached to the10mm. Also saw Jupiter with its four Galilean moons. It is mostly useful for greater detail of what’s already visible with the naked eye. And of course viewing conditions are always extremely important.
The finder scope is a little flimsy and difficult to use at times.
The Celestron Astromaster 70AZ.
Nice telescope 70mm lens, 2 x eyepieces a 10mm and a 20mm a star finder light and the 90 fitting to use for the eyepieces. The tripod isn’t bad either… it has a tray for your eyepieces and bits.
We bought ours to view the rings of Saturn and you can see them quite clearly but the image was small, as you might expect from a budget priced telescope. We could also see Jupiter although a bit blurry although it’s many moons were quite clear next to it.
Overall the 70AZ is not a bad telescope for a beginner like us but we had some misgivings with the telescope itself.
On our telescope, (they may not all be like this) but the rotating wheels axel unit attached to the base to adjust the focus was skewiff while mounted on the tripod which made it look odd, there was no way of straightening this, it was like as if the person who assembled it didn’t make sure it was straight before they glued and rivited the end mechanism onto the tube. There was also some very sticky lubrication grease which we got on our hands from the inner chrome focusing tube (we think) and had to use methylated spirit to get it off our hands in the early hours of the morning after viewing Jupiter and Saturn for the first time. The metal ring on the end of the telescope was loose and wouldn’t stay put while removing the dust cover, there wasn’t even any way of securing it, so there were a few issues we had with it sorry.
If you don’t have the floor space to keep this sort of telescope on it’s tripod, this may not be the type tou want taking up room.
Unfortunately we sent the whole thing back, we may get an equivalent at a later date because we did enjoy using this briefly but as soon as we decided to return it we packed it all back up in it’s box ready to go back.
Remember that no two 70AZ identical telescopes will be the same but this was our experience, don’t let us put you off.
We hope our information helps, thankyou for reading.
Great for beginners
Bought as a present for my boyfriend, he loved it.
Very easy to assemble in 5-10 Minutes and ready to use.
Not very easy to carry due to its size, so we Had to buy a case to carry it.
Recommended for beginners as it s really easy to use. Good value for money
parfait pour les dbutants !
Il est parfait !! De trs belle qualit, aprs un achat d’un appareil d’une autre marque qui nous a du, on a dcid de s’acheter celui-ci. Notre fils de 10 ans s’en sert trs facilement et tout seul. C’est un cadeau pour lui. Les optiques sont faciles acheter. Vraiment trs contente de cet achat !
Uncomplicated and works well
I haven’t replied to durability as only recently purchased. However, it looks strong and sturdy. It has excellent viewing and this has been confirmed by visitors who have looked through the scope. Celestron is a good and trusted name and I would highly recommend this Telescope. The stand is stable and easy to assemble. Pans and elevates smoothly.
A first class Telescope and ideal for beginners.
I got this telescope for my birthday as I have always been interested in astronomy, however, we had a cheap supermarket telescope when I was younger, which put my parents and me off from telescopes at the time. This AstroMaster Refractor is a great starter telescope in my opinion mainly because of it’s ease of use. However, I would say that it is most suited for looking at the moon. I saw Jupiter and it’s four moons, which was a great experience, however, it is quite difficult to keep track of Jupiter given it’s movement across the nightsky and the telescope’s handle. I also had difficulties using the finder scope, but that is mainly due to me being as good as blind ;). I would recommend using free mobile apps like SkyView Lite. These are great tools to find your way around the nightsky. Overall, this telescope is great. It is durable and of good quality, but most importantly it is a lot of fun using it to look at the stars. Highly recommended!
The Celestron Astromaster 70AZ is a lovely starter scope for anyone. After re-searching for ages and not really having an idea what is good for a beginner & what’s not I went with this.
Easy to set up. Everything is very well made and it comes with two lens pieces that are 20mm & 10mm which for a beginner is more than enough.
You can see the moon superbly & the craters. Aswell as other cool clusters & nebulas such as the Pleides & the Orion Nebula.
Had great fun with it so far and very happy with the price.
I’ve attached a photo & video of the moon. Photo with the 20mm & video with the 10mm. Both using a moon filter.
Got this 2-3 years back and have only used it a few times, once at the moon (with extra filters I bought to make it easier on the eye and for seeing better detail). This was my first telescope, so I didn’t know what to expect, but the build quality of this is high, and its easy to swivel round with the handle. It takes up quite a lot of room. The built-in laser dot for pinpointing your target is handy, but you have to be careful not to leave the switch on and drain the power.
As a complete novice, I learned that using this on stars is pointless (other than for seeing a few more stars in the distance), so really it’s only useful for looking at the moon, planets and other more easily visible celestial phenomenon.
Love it only wish that I had bought the EQ model. Telescope is fantastic starter, however, the tripod is functional and very natural for a novice to use. But I quickly was wishing I had bought the EQ as it has scope (he he) to develop with you as a sky watcher.
excellent scope ...value for money
The celestron Astromaster 70 As is just an astronomical marvel .First of all the packaging was very good taking care that non of the components were damaged during transit. The components of the scope were very easy to assemble requiring no use of the manual at all. The tripod is sturdy,heavy and made of cast iron which gives this awesome tripod a lot of stability. The pan handle of this tripod makes movement both in horizontal and vertical direction very easy. The tripod comes with lock capability to stabilize the scope at a particular site in the sky. Coming to the telescope itself,its just a beauty with a dark glossy blue paint which gives the scope a lot of glamour. The optics are fully coated to give crisp view. The objective is covered with a 2 inch collar which prevents scattered light to enter the objective . its also has its own cap to prevent dust entry. The scope comes with fully coated 20 mm and 10 mm eyepieces of 1.25 diameter. Even though both are Kellner eyepieces the 10 mm gives excellent view of both land and sky objects. The 10 mm is a bit letdown. However upgradation to 15 mm super plossl gives awesome views. The moon has gotten so near coz of this scope.All craters are easily visible and the smooth rack and pinion focuser makes focusing a glory. Venus going through its lunar like transits are easily visible, Jupiter with its moons.the cloud band of Jupiter can be easily appreciated. Saturn with its rings is just a sight to take ones breathe away.mars with a little adjustment reveals its ice caps with this scope. The orion nebula and deep sky objects like Andromeda galaxy are visible through it. The scope also has its own utility tray for keeping spare eyepieces.The scope comes along with a led finderscope which can be adjusted with two finger screws to bring the finder’s dots in alignment with the telescope. This telescope even comes with its own sky software which is also very easy to use. One can chose his own location in the pc and locate objects in the sky with ease.However there is always room for improvement by celestron.The telescope is little jerky at high magnificatins which needs correction. The 10 mm eyepiece should be changed.it has very little eye relief. Since its a 70 mm f13 objective so one should not hope of getting useable magnifications above 140x. I had a 6 inch reflector but this gives much clearer images. Another great part of all refractors is that they don’t need any maintenance. The reflectors require constant collimation which is a pain. Then the mirrors slowly lose their optical abilities requiring realuminization which is an even greater pain. But such tragedies are avoided if one buys any refractor telescopes. Overall its a great scope , worth the price. Only thing is that one should buy a plossl 15 mm for best results…..
As far as introductory scopes go, this is exceptionally good for the price. You can see a fair amount with it such as pleiades (a beautiful cluster of stars with a faint cloud), and the craters and dents of the moon (you will need to purchase a moon filter as the moon is very bright). You can also see jupiter and if you strain your eyes hard enough you can JUST about make out the very faint stripes.
The greatest problem I have had with the scope is the mount. It does not allow for precision scanning of the sky and you have to pull/push the telescope itself into position. Also, once it is in position, it does not stay there and moves – this makes it hard to look at an object for a while or to take pictures (you may need to purchase additional kits to take pictures, i got a kit for my nikkon camera). But lets be honest here, for the price, the makers have to cut corners on something and in this instance, the mount lost out. You can buy different mounts which allow for much more precision as they have twisty knobs which tilt the scope in minute directions and hold it there.
I’ve had great fun learning with this telescope over the last few months, and i am now upgrading to a skywatcher one (with a better mount!). If you are a beginner, don’t know if astronomy is for you and don’t want to spend ridiculous amounts of money then this could be the scope for you. If you are hoping to see massive cloudy nebulas and great details of planets (i.e all the lines and the great red spot of jupiter) then avoid this scope and invest in something more expensive. Bear in mind that the multicoloured nebulas you see in magazines are the result of thousands of photos stacked upon each other, with coloured filters and hours of work – you wont see these sorts of images with your eyes.
I bought both the 50AZ and 70AZ and they are worlds apart! The 70AZ has a very useable tripod and the Eyepieces are of good enough quality for starters. Obviously using more expensive/better quality eyepieces will improve performance. my only gripe with the telescope i recieved was some of the polystyrene packaging(a few specks) had got inside the tube either during packing or delivery. i shook them out without much dificulty.
Performance wise the telescope is good, the red dot finder is reasonably easy to set up, but when looking at objects overhead you have to get right under it which needs some contortions at times. i would recommend this scope to starters, it’s light weight and reasonable construction make it worth the 65.00 spent. The 50AZ was 40 cheaper but absolutely useless, i wrote a review about it, but in summary i was deeply saddened by celestrons decision to let the 50AZ be marketed under their name. especially as their other products of 60mm and upwards are all good budget kit.
Dont believe all you may read on other sites telling you that you need a big reflector telescope to see anything. these long focal length refractors are virtually CA free (chromatic aberation) and give good views for beginners. the whole myth of poor optics on small refractors comes from cheap telescopes like the 50AZ and other toyshop telescopes.
For the price, this telescope is amazing. I saw Saturn and its rings for the first time in my life, and it was amazing. At 70x magnification Saturn is not very big, only about a tiny speck. But the sharpness was almost perfect, I could clearly see the planet and the rings.
If only you could increase the magnification with for example a Barlow Lens, it would be awesome. But because of the tripod it’s extremely difficult to center the image at 70x. It’s basically a camera tripod; in that you have to unlock the horizontal axis, turn the telescope, lock the horizontal, unlock the vertical, align the telescope and lock the vertical again. And finally wait for the vibrations from all that to stabilize.
But again, the telescope itself is really good.
Bought as a gift for my Dad which was very well received, he absolutely loves it and as it keeps him quiet, so does my Mum! 🙂
After reading several reviews on other Telescopes ranging from budget to ridiculous, this seemed the better option, Dad has found it easy to use and view the stars with, so as a cheaper scope that will keep his attention this has been a useful and handy introduction to Astronomy, maybe in a couple of years he may need an upgrade to a more expensive model, but for now this does the job very well.
Definitely recommended for the budding astronomer.
This is a very good entry level telescope. The optics are excellent for the price and it’s simple to set up. In my first couple of days of using it I got some great observations of the moon, with lots of craters and mountains and valleys, and a lovely view of Jupiter: a small white disc, with some bands just visible, and four moons like little pinpricks of light strung out beside it. The only drawback is the mounting, which isn’t great, so the telescope does tend to slip around a bit when you’re trying to aim it at something. But overall it’s very good value for money.
This is a fantastic beginners refractor telescope. I bought this for my sons 8th birthday earlier this year. Unfortunately we just missed out on the clear skies we had in March with the Jupiter Venus conjunction. That said we’ve had a few clear skies since then to get good use out of the scope where we have seen some fabulous views of the moon, Jupiter, Venus & Saturn.
I would highly recommend an additional purchase of the Celestron eyepiece set to use with this scope. The refractor comes with two eyepieces, a 20mm & 10mm. The 20mm is ok but the 10mm in my opinion is a poor eyepiece. Since purchasing the eyepiece set I don’t think I have bothered with either of the two included eyepieces as the set one’s are far better quality (in particular the 32mm eyepiece). Getting back to the telescope I was impressed with the build quality of both the tripod and scope. The tripod is an Alt-Azimuth. At first I regretted not getting an equatorial mount for the scope which is recommended over the Alt-Azimuth for astronomy. I’m not so bothered about it now as I find the tripod very easy to set up which means I can get it out of the house and into the garden quickly. My son has also used the scope for spotting on the seafront which an Alt-Azimuth is recommended for so you now have more than one use for the telescope. Perhaps in the future we may purchase an equatorial mount when it’s time to upgrade but this suits us perfectly for now.
The scope has a dove tail mount for the tripod, I noticed some reviewers complain about the scope wobbling at the mount which I have also experienced but I got round this by taking my time carefully mounting the scope to the tripod. Once done you don’t really need to do this again as I tend to put the telescope away by removing the tray and collapsing the tripod legs rather than removing the scope from the tripod.
With the stock 20mm eyepiece you will see Jupiter and it’s four largest moons, the phases of Venus, Saturn with it’s rings visible and as expected with most telescopes very clear close up images of the moon. I think this is excellent for what is a sub 100 telescope.
There are of course things not to like at this price range. I’ve already commented on what I think about the stock eyepieces. My only other gripe is with the diagonal which has a cheap plastic feel to it. It’s perfectly functional but I found over time it loosened with the screws not doing a good job of holding it tightly to the back of the scope. I ended up replacing this for a better quality celestron diagonal which cost about 25. Money well spent.
Hopefully you can see an image I have attached of the moon taken with a compact camera mounted to this telescope via a 32mm eyepiece. Definitely recommend upgrading your eyepieces, that said at less than 100 this is the scope to get and perfect for starting out in Astronomy.
Update – 19-Sep-2012 :-
Just like to add that I recently purchased a Telrad red dot finder to use with this telescope which I’m very glad I did as it helped me locate the Andromeda Galaxy last night! Seeing conditions were as good as they get with no moon but still some light pollution what with living 35 miles outside of London and near an airport. People who say that this scope is limited to just solar objects are wrong! You can use this for viewing Deep Sky Objects (DSO) as well. Ok Andromeda was just a faint grey smudge but I still managed to locate it with this telescope using the stock 20mm eyepiece. Simply amazing!
This scope is brilliant it was very easy to set up,very sturdy and when used for the first time very easy to use. As I had a reflector scope before this one I found this refractor a little harder when looking high in the sky a small stool or chair is needed as the eye lense ends up being low down, also the diagnol that comes with the scope could be replaced with a better quality one. Overall I am very very happy with it.
I bought this telescope a few weeks ago as my first telescope. I had been watching some programmes about space and decided to get myself a scope so I could have a look for myself.
I have used the telescope about 3 times since I’ve had it but it’s mainly because I’m busy with studying at the moment but I have had chance to have a good look at the moon and was very impressed. I got a very sharp image and could easily make out craters on the moon.
I did some star gazing in my back garden one night but was not terribly impressed as, like somebody on here already pointed out, the telescope only really makes more stars visible and makes the stars which are already visible slighly brighter.
Not yet had change to look at Saturn but plan to do so when I get chance!
Oh, one other thing, I bought the moon filter. I don’t know if it’s worth 15 to be honest (inc delivery). Without the filter the moon still looked amazing. It just lowered the brightness of it a bit.
I used the telescope to view some countryside from out of my bedroom window and could see a house that was barely visible with my naked eyes which was impressive. Very clear picture.
People are right about the verticle lock, you need to aim the scope below what you want to view before tightening but I beleive with practice this would become easy.
Will probably update my review once I have had more time using it. I’m off to the lake district at the end of June so will be taking it with me there. Hopefully will get some nice darkness to test it out properly.
I think the telescope is good then, but I have nothing to compare it with.
Thanks,
Ross
A 3 minute video quickly reviewing the Celestron Astromaster 70AZ Telescope. Please bare in mind that some features are recommended extras for enthusiasts only. All information is from personel experience but may contain some degree of personnel opinion. Please rate how helpful you found this video. Also leave any comments you find relevant to assist potential customers and for the improvement of future reviews. Celestron Astromaster 70AZ Telescope Cost of item at time of review – Under 80.00.