A good Telescope, but ... warranty issues...

2026-03-06    -Mohammad Belal Alshammaa

This was my second telescope. I liked the idea of computerized alignment & objects seeking. The optical tube design is excellent. I was able to see a sharp views of the moon, the sun (via appropriate solar filter), the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, as well as Uranus. I was able to point to most famous stars. I was able to attach a Canon camera (EOS M50) and capture a lot of very nice photos of our solar planets & other stars.However, my disappointment started after only 5 weeks of enjoying this great telescope. The mount stopped responding ☹️🥴.I had to return it back & I got a full refund as it was still under warranty.I got instead the NexStar 6SE. Hopefully, I wouldn't need any service or repair in the next many years to come.

Great beginner telescope

2026-01-16    -Amazon Customer

This was originally bought for a ground based study of satellite antenna and terrestrial microwave physical interference project. I used it to find visible obstructions like buildings, trees, etc following the satellite arc and line-of-site communications at a proposed telecommunications sight. It is quite powerful. For instance, at a 4km distance, it could barely show a single window of a high rise condominium building in is field of view. Since then, it has been used for enjoyment. Looking at the moon, stars, etc. And I have bought many other accessories, lenses, etc for this new hobby. As a star gazer, you might want a more powerful scope, but it has been fun to start with. I bought a camera lens adapter for my digital SLR and have taken some amazing pictures with it. Talk about a telefoto lens! I still struggle with the automatic tracking feature. I guess I need to learn a little bit more about the stars to get it working properly.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great telescope for beginners

2026-01-14    -Judy Sit

Great telescope for a full year now. I brought the 5'' because it fits my budget and is much more portable than the 6" & 8".The telescope arrived in two boxes and was packaged well. It was quite easy to assemble and was straightforward. But the first night when I tested it the red dot finder failed and would not turn on. I contacted product support and they refunded the price of the red dot finder to let me buy another. I think this is reasonable.The telescope was of good quality and was fairly portable in two pieces. I also brought it with the Nex-yz adapter and eyepiece kit. In my opinion, I would not buy the phone adapter and eyepiece kit because I don't use the adapter and eyepiece often. You will pretty much only use the moon filter, 13, 17, and 32mm eyepieces. I also brought a generic LPR filter which helps somewhat in revealing dim objects and filtering out the light pollution.The goto function was really helpful in finding objects especially DSO's. I will use the auto 2 star alignment procedure and manual location settings.This scope was fine for starting astrophotography but exposures can only be limited to 30 seconds maximum. Even though there was a polar alignment option, it was really hard to do since I am living quite close to the equator in Hong Kong and the mount twists into a really weird position when tracking.In the first few months I viewed only from the city, which was a bortle 9 scale. The planets are easy to see, you can see the belts of Jupiter and its moons, and the rings of Saturn easily. If you want a telescope for ONLY the planets, I would recommend some of the scopes without go to like a dobsonian or maktusov because you will be able to see more detail with increased aperture. You don't need go-to because planets are really bright and sometimes the mount will go off track. The Orion Nebula can be seen though only the bright parts. The andromeda galaxy can NOT be seen at all in light polluted places.Later I was able to go out to a better spot ( bortle 5 ) and it was excellent, and I was able to see the double cluster, Orion Nebula and andromeda galaxy a lot better.I would recommend this scope to beginners and people starting astronomy. You can get good results in the middle of the city, but driving to a deep sky site really makes the view impressive. I will not recommend this for astrophotography but instead will recommend scopes with German equatorial mounts.* images are taken with A6000 camera with remote control.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Telescope for the Money

2025-12-24    -Brian Lessig

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE NEXSTAR 4SE: I don't normally write reviews for most products but since buying a telescope can be trickey I thought I should help others with this process. First of all if you buy this product you will need to buy a 12v power adapter since the only other option is using AA batteries. If you choose to use batteries you will run into several problems. First of all is the fact that the telescope will run through batteries quickly. I really don't even know why they made batteries an option. Second, batteries do not function well during the cold months. Lastly, batteries do not provide sufficient power for this product to function properly. Now that I have discussed power let me tell you about the scope. This telescope comes with a 25mm lens which is fine but you will want more lenses to enhance your experience. I started by getting a Barlow lens (celestron X-cel Barlow). This is a great Barlow for the money and only has slight dimming. My next purchase will be a X-cel 12mm lens. Back to the telescope. The telescope is very easy to set up and provides great views of Jupiter, the moon, Saturn and deep sky objects. It is easy to focus and lived up to all my expectations. I looked at the nexstar 5 but by the time you buy the accessories you need you will be in the $1000 range. I have never viewed through the Nexstar 5 but based on the reviews I would assume that there is not a significant difference unless you are willing to shell out the $$ for something like the nexstar 6 or 8. The tripod that comes with this telescope is heavy duty and stable. The go to features of this telescope are what makes viewing a pleasure and so easy. You will want to make sure and read the Manuel and watch videos on YouTube to learn how the controller works. Once you have learned how to operate the controller you are well on your way to viewing the night sky. For me this telescope has been life changing because I have always wanted a telescope and just never committed to spending the money. I can tell you that it is money well spent because I have spent a lot of quality time viewing with my son and my friends. You can easily transport this scope wherever you go (outdoors) to make any occasion more interesting. I often find that many people have not viewed the planets through a quality scope and they really appreciate the opportunity it provides. So there it is. I highly reccomend this product. I am including some photos of the moon I took through the lens with my iPhone. I am giving 5 stars because of the quality of the telescope. I can overlook the battery issues due to the bottom line fact that I was impressed with the views of the night sky.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great telescope for beginners

2025-12-22    -Judy Sit

Great telescope for a full year now. I brought the 5'' because it fits my budget and is much more portable than the 6" & 8".The telescope arrived in two boxes and was packaged well. It was quite easy to assemble and was straightforward. But the first night when I tested it the red dot finder failed and would not turn on. I contacted product support and they refunded the price of the red dot finder to let me buy another. I think this is reasonable.The telescope was of good quality and was fairly portable in two pieces. I also brought it with the Nex-yz adapter and eyepiece kit. In my opinion, I would not buy the phone adapter and eyepiece kit because I don't use the adapter and eyepiece often. You will pretty much only use the moon filter, 13, 17, and 32mm eyepieces. I also brought a generic LPR filter which helps somewhat in revealing dim objects and filtering out the light pollution.The goto function was really helpful in finding objects especially DSO's. I will use the auto 2 star alignment procedure and manual location settings.This scope was fine for starting astrophotography but exposures can only be limited to 30 seconds maximum. Even though there was a polar alignment option, it was really hard to do since I am living quite close to the equator in Hong Kong and the mount twists into a really weird position when tracking.In the first few months I viewed only from the city, which was a bortle 9 scale. The planets are easy to see, you can see the belts of Jupiter and its moons, and the rings of Saturn easily. If you want a telescope for ONLY the planets, I would recommend some of the scopes without go to like a dobsonian or maktusov because you will be able to see more detail with increased aperture. You don't need go-to because planets are really bright and sometimes the mount will go off track. The Orion Nebula can be seen though only the bright parts. The andromeda galaxy can NOT be seen at all in light polluted places.Later I was able to go out to a better spot ( bortle 5 ) and it was excellent, and I was able to see the double cluster, Orion Nebula and andromeda galaxy a lot better.I would recommend this scope to beginners and people starting astronomy. You can get good results in the middle of the city, but driving to a deep sky site really makes the view impressive. I will not recommend this for astrophotography but instead will recommend scopes with German equatorial mounts.* images are taken with A6000 camera with remote control.

Great beginner telescope

2025-12-24    -Amazon Customer

This was originally bought for a ground based study of satellite antenna and terrestrial microwave physical interference project. I used it to find visible obstructions like buildings, trees, etc following the satellite arc and line-of-site communications at a proposed telecommunications sight. It is quite powerful. For instance, at a 4km distance, it could barely show a single window of a high rise condominium building in is field of view. Since then, it has been used for enjoyment. Looking at the moon, stars, etc. And I have bought many other accessories, lenses, etc for this new hobby. As a star gazer, you might want a more powerful scope, but it has been fun to start with. I bought a camera lens adapter for my digital SLR and have taken some amazing pictures with it. Talk about a telefoto lens! I still struggle with the automatic tracking feature. I guess I need to learn a little bit more about the stars to get it working properly.

Celestron 5se

2026-02-22    -Cliente Amazon

Hola a todos, recibí el telescopio vendido por Amazon ,en muy buen estado, como el cuidado que han tenido de traerlo de reino Unido sin arañazos y nada que se suele encontrar en un pedido de tantos km en tan perfectas condiciones. E leído las reseñas de muchos compradores como yo, y tenía mis dudas ,pero con la confianza de devolución en caso de venir mal,pues me decidí a comprarlo y muy contento con el producto,calidad celestron!!!Básicamente viene como si lo compraras en la misma tienda celestron ( bien colimado)y si, viene con 1 ocular pero no se acaba el mundo hay muchas variedades de oculares y estos son caretes ,pero es como todo en esta vida,se paga la calidad si vas a darle 1 uso frecuente,si no, hay más variedades de fabricantes.El telescopio de calidad ,la montura es perfecta para este tubo y la goto funciona perfectamente y si le sumas el módulo WiFi, mejor que mejor. Todo correcto y quien tenga duda,que no se lo piense.

Celestron 5se

2026-02-25    -Cliente Amazon

Hola a todos, recibí el telescopio vendido por Amazon ,en muy buen estado, como el cuidado que han tenido de traerlo de reino Unido sin arañazos y nada que se suele encontrar en un pedido de tantos km en tan perfectas condiciones. E leído las reseñas de muchos compradores como yo, y tenía mis dudas ,pero con la confianza de devolución en caso de venir mal,pues me decidí a comprarlo y muy contento con el producto,calidad celestron!!!Básicamente viene como si lo compraras en la misma tienda celestron ( bien colimado)y si, viene con 1 ocular pero no se acaba el mundo hay muchas variedades de oculares y estos son caretes ,pero es como todo en esta vida,se paga la calidad si vas a darle 1 uso frecuente,si no, hay más variedades de fabricantes.El telescopio de calidad ,la montura es perfecta para este tubo y la goto funciona perfectamente y si le sumas el módulo WiFi, mejor que mejor. Todo correcto y quien tenga duda,que no se lo piense.

A good product and good service from Amazon.

2026-01-21    -A R Wollaston

The Amazon price was amazing and I'm not surprised it went up by almost $900, a day or two after I bought it. Delivery was quick in the US and slowed up a bit in Australia, but that's to be expected. We're still using camel trains to transport goods and most communication is done between two tin cans with a few hundred kilometres of string between them.The telescope was well packaged and took about 15 minutes to put together. One of the retaining screws for the Star Diagonal is missing but I'm pretty sure I can find something that will fit.I have only had a chance to test it terrestrially because of rain at night but I'm sure it will be fine.If Celestron and almost every other corporation on the planet didn't gouge Australians so badly on price I'd buy locally but it looks like Amazon is going to get more of my business.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Telescope for the Money

2026-03-02    -Brian Lessig

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE NEXSTAR 4SE: I don't normally write reviews for most products but since buying a telescope can be trickey I thought I should help others with this process. First of all if you buy this product you will need to buy a 12v power adapter since the only other option is using AA batteries. If you choose to use batteries you will run into several problems. First of all is the fact that the telescope will run through batteries quickly. I really don't even know why they made batteries an option. Second, batteries do not function well during the cold months. Lastly, batteries do not provide sufficient power for this product to function properly. Now that I have discussed power let me tell you about the scope. This telescope comes with a 25mm lens which is fine but you will want more lenses to enhance your experience. I started by getting a Barlow lens (celestron X-cel Barlow). This is a great Barlow for the money and only has slight dimming. My next purchase will be a X-cel 12mm lens. Back to the telescope. The telescope is very easy to set up and provides great views of Jupiter, the moon, Saturn and deep sky objects. It is easy to focus and lived up to all my expectations. I looked at the nexstar 5 but by the time you buy the accessories you need you will be in the $1000 range. I have never viewed through the Nexstar 5 but based on the reviews I would assume that there is not a significant difference unless you are willing to shell out the $$ for something like the nexstar 6 or 8. The tripod that comes with this telescope is heavy duty and stable. The go to features of this telescope are what makes viewing a pleasure and so easy. You will want to make sure and read the Manuel and watch videos on YouTube to learn how the controller works. Once you have learned how to operate the controller you are well on your way to viewing the night sky. For me this telescope has been life changing because I have always wanted a telescope and just never committed to spending the money. I can tell you that it is money well spent because I have spent a lot of quality time viewing with my son and my friends. You can easily transport this scope wherever you go (outdoors) to make any occasion more interesting. I often find that many people have not viewed the planets through a quality scope and they really appreciate the opportunity it provides. So there it is. I highly reccomend this product. I am including some photos of the moon I took through the lens with my iPhone. I am giving 5 stars because of the quality of the telescope. I can overlook the battery issues due to the bottom line fact that I was impressed with the views of the night sky.