I remember the feeling vividly: standing in my garden on a clear, cold night, neck craned upwards, pointing out constellations to my kids. “There’s Orion’s Belt… and that bright one is Jupiter,” I’d say, tracing patterns with my finger. But they were just… dots. Bright, beautiful, but ultimately distant and flat. There’s a profound human curiosity, an ache almost, to bridge that immense gap, to pull those celestial objects closer and see them for what they truly are—worlds, burning suns, and cosmic dust clouds. Without the right tool, that curiosity remains just out of reach, and the universe stays a two-dimensional tapestry. This is the problem the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope aims to solve. It’s designed not for the seasoned astronomer with a home observatory, but for the rest of us: the families, the hobbyists, the dreamers who want to take their first real step into the cosmos from their own backyard.
- POWERFUL REFRACTOR TELESCOPE: Features fully-coated glass optics, a sturdy and lightweight frame, two eyepieces, a StarPointer red dot finderscope and an adjustable tripod
- HIGH-QUALITY 70MM OPTICS: The heart of the system is a fully-coated 70mm primary mirror; The AstroMaster mount features a panning handle that allows you to make precision adjustments to view celestial...
What to Consider Before Buying Your First Telescope
A telescope is more than just an item; it’s a key solution for transforming an abstract interest in astronomy into a tangible, awe-inspiring experience. It’s a time machine that lets you look at light that has travelled for years to reach your eye and a microscope for the grandest scale imaginable. The main benefit is its ability to gather far more light than the human eye, revealing faint objects and magnifying distant ones to show surface details, like the craters of the Moon or the bands of Jupiter. It fosters a connection to the natural world, provides endless educational opportunities for all ages, and can become a deeply rewarding lifelong hobby. It’s an investment in wonder.
The ideal customer for a product like the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope is someone facing the very problem I described: a curious beginner or a family looking for a shared activity that is both educational and fun. It’s for the person who has researched just enough to know they want something better than toy-store quality but isn’t ready to commit thousands of pounds to a complex, computerised system. It might not be suitable for those whose primary goal is astrophotography of faint, deep-sky objects or for seasoned astronomers who would feel limited by its 70mm aperture. For those individuals, more advanced Schmidt-Cassegrain or large-aperture Dobsonian telescopes would be a better, albeit more expensive, path.
Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:
- Dimensions & Space: A refractor telescope’s focal length directly impacts its physical length. The AstroMaster 70AZ has a 900mm focal length, meaning the optical tube is quite long (around 3 feet). Consider where you will store it and how you’ll transport it. While not excessively heavy, its length and the fully assembled tripod require a bit of space, making it better suited for backyard viewing than for impromptu trips in a small car.
- Capacity/Performance: The two most important numbers are aperture (the diameter of the main lens, here 70mm) and focal length (900mm). The aperture dictates how much light the telescope can gather (brighter images, more detail), while the focal length influences magnification. This combination makes the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope excellent for high-contrast targets like the Moon, Saturn, and Jupiter, but less capable for faint, diffuse objects like distant galaxies and nebulae.
- Materials & Durability: Look for stability. This model features a pre-assembled tripod with 1.25-inch steel tube legs, which is a significant step up from the flimsy aluminium tripods found on many entry-level scopes. The optical tube is metal, and the optics are fully coated glass, ensuring better light transmission and durability than plastic lenses. These materials suggest a product built to last through many nights of stargazing.
- Ease of Use & Maintenance: There are two main mount types for beginners: Altazimuth (AZ) and Equatorial (EQ). The AZ mount on this telescope is incredibly intuitive; you simply move it up, down, left, and right, like a camera tripod. This “point-and-shoot” simplicity is perfect for beginners. Furthermore, refractor telescopes have a sealed optical tube, making them very low-maintenance as the lenses rarely need cleaning or alignment.
Choosing your first telescope is a big decision, a true portal to new discoveries. The Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope represents one of the most popular starting points for good reason, as we’ll explore.
While the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope is an excellent choice, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:
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- Beginner telescope: Explore the Moon's craters and star clusters in vivid detail with a 70 mm glass lens, sparking curiosity and enhancing every stargazing moment.
Unboxing the Cosmos: First Impressions and Key Features
The promise of a “quick, no-tool setup” is a bold claim in the world of telescopes, where assembly can often feel like a frustrating puzzle in the dark. Unboxing the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope, however, was a genuinely pleasant surprise. Everything was logically packed, and the main components—the optical tube, the mount, and the tripod—were immediately identifiable. The tripod comes pre-assembled; you just need to spread the legs, attach the accessory tray (which doubles as a brace), and mount the telescope tube itself using a simple dovetail connection. True to their word, no tools were needed, and from sealed box to fully assembled, we were ready to go in under 20 minutes. This ease of assembly is a massive win for beginners and is a sentiment echoed by countless users who praise how quickly they could get started.
The first impression is one of surprising quality for the price point. The dark blue metallic finish on the optical tube is sleek, and the steel tripod feels substantially more robust than expected. It immediately feels like a serious instrument, not a toy. Included in the box are two eyepieces (20mm and 10mm), an erect image star diagonal (crucial for comfortable viewing and for using the scope for terrestrial observation), and the StarPointer red dot finderscope. It’s a complete package designed to get you observing on your first clear night. You can explore the full accessory list and technical specs here.
Key Benefits
- Incredibly easy and fast tool-free setup, perfect for beginners.
- Excellent optical quality for lunar and planetary viewing.
- Sturdy steel-leg tripod provides a stable viewing platform.
- Great value for money, offering a complete starter package.
- Dual-purpose design works for both night sky and daytime land viewing.
Potential Drawbacks
- The included 10mm eyepiece is of basic quality and limits magnification potential.
- StarPointer finderscope can be flimsy and requires frequent realignment.
From Our Backyard to the Rings of Saturn: A Performance Deep Dive
A telescope’s true worth is measured not in its specs, but in the clarity of the heavens it can deliver to your eye. Over several weeks of testing, we put the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope through its paces on everything from the Moon to distant star clusters, and what we found was a telescope that consistently punches above its weight, especially for aspiring astronomers.
Assembly and First Light: A Truly Beginner-Friendly Experience
The initial setup is where many potential astronomers give up. Complicated mounts and confusing instructions can be a huge barrier. Celestron has clearly engineered the AstroMaster series to obliterate this barrier. As mentioned, the assembly was a breeze. The Altazimuth mount, with its simple panning handle, is immediately intuitive. You push the handle left, the scope goes left. You tilt it up, the scope points up. There is no complex polar alignment or counterweight balancing to worry about, which is a massive relief for a first-time user. The accessory tray is a simple but brilliant touch, providing a convenient place to store your extra eyepiece while adding crucial stability to the tripod legs.
The only part of the setup that required a little patience was aligning the StarPointer finderscope. This device projects a small red dot onto a non-magnified window, allowing you to aim the main telescope. You must first align it during the day by pointing the main telescope at a distant, stationary object (like a treetop or telephone pole) and then adjusting the finderscope until the red dot is perfectly centred on the same object. We found the adjustment knobs to be a bit sensitive, and the plastic housing feels less robust than the rest of the scope. Several users confirmed our experience, noting that it can be “flimsy” and “tricky to adjust.” However, once aligned, it makes finding celestial objects infinitely easier than squinting down the main tube. That first moment of finding the Moon with the red dot and then seeing it leap into focus in the eyepiece is pure magic.
Optical Quality and Viewing Experience: The Moon, Planets, and Beyond
This is where the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope truly shines. With the included 20mm eyepiece (providing 45x magnification), our first view of a near-full Moon was breathtaking. The image was sharp, bright, and full of incredible detail. We could easily trace the dark maria (seas), see the bright rays extending from craters like Tycho and Copernicus, and resolve countless smaller craters along the terminator—the line between lunar day and night. The contrast was excellent, and the experience was engrossing. Many new owners share this exact sentiment, with one user stating, “You can see the moon superbly & the craters,” and another noting the “amazing views of the moon.”
Moving to the planets, we were able to clearly identify Jupiter as a distinct orb, not just a star. The real prize was seeing its four Galilean moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—lined up like tiny diamonds on either side. It’s a sight that never gets old. Saturn, though smaller, clearly showed its iconic rings, separate from the planet itself. As one user happily reported, they were “able to see the rings of Saturn along with a couple of moons very clearly.” These are the “wow” moments that hook you on astronomy. The telescope’s 70mm aperture and fully coated optics do an admirable job of delivering these bright targets with clarity. It’s a performance level that offers a fantastic return on investment, which you can verify by checking the latest price.
Its limitations appear when you hunt for fainter deep-sky objects. While we could spot the fuzzy patch of the Orion Nebula and the beautiful Pleiades star cluster (as another user did), dimmer galaxies and nebulae are beyond its light-gathering grasp. This is not a flaw, but simply a characteristic of its aperture size. It excels at its primary purpose: being a fantastic lunar and planetary scope.
The Altazimuth Mount and Tripod: Stability Meets Simplicity
A great optical tube is useless without a stable mount to hold it steady. The Altazimuth mount on the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope is a pillar of simplicity. The panning handle allows for smooth, if basic, movements across the sky. Following the Moon as it drifted was straightforward, though it requires constant small adjustments. This is a key difference from an EQ mount which, once aligned, can track an object with the turn of a single knob. However, for a beginner, the AZ mount’s zero-learning-curve is a huge advantage. There’s no intimidation factor whatsoever.
The tripod itself is a strong point. The 1.25-inch steel legs provide a much more solid foundation than the wobbly, thin aluminium legs common in this category. We found it to be very stable when not fully extended. However, as one user who stands at 5’4″ noted, the tripod is a “little low” and can be less sturdy at its maximum height. We concur; for the best stability, it’s wise to keep the legs only partially extended and to sit on a low stool or chair for comfortable viewing. Even with this minor wobble at full extension, it’s a far cry from the frustratingly shaky tripods that plague many other starter scopes, making the overall viewing experience much more enjoyable.
Included Accessories and Upgrade Path: What’s in the Box and What’s Next?
The accessory package is well-thought-out for a beginner. The 20mm eyepiece is a great starting point, offering a wide field of view that makes it easy to locate objects. The 10mm eyepiece doubles the magnification to 90x, which is useful for getting a closer look at planets. However, we must agree with the consensus among experienced users: the 10mm eyepiece is the weakest link in the package. An owner described it as a “poor eyepiece,” and we found the eye relief to be tight and the image noticeably less sharp than with the 20mm. This is a very common cost-saving measure in telescope kits.
Fortunately, this leads to the telescope’s fantastic potential as a platform for upgrades. The single best investment you can make is a 2x Barlow lens. As recommended by multiple users, a Barlow lens effectively doubles the magnification of any given eyepiece, turning your good 20mm into a powerful 90x eyepiece and giving you a high-power 180x view with the 10mm (though image quality will be soft at this level). Purchasing a separate, higher-quality Plossl eyepiece (perhaps a 6mm or 9mm) would also be a transformative upgrade. The inclusion of the Starry Night Basic Edition software is also a huge bonus, helping you learn the night sky and plan what you want to see. This telescope isn’t just a one-time purchase; it’s the foundation of a new hobby, and the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope provides a solid base to build upon.
What Other Users Are Saying
After our own extensive testing, we delved into the experiences of other stargazers to get a broader picture. The consensus is overwhelmingly positive, with most users hailing the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope as a “fantastic beginners refractor telescope” and “exceptional value for money.” One parent bought it for their 8-year-old son and reported “fabulous views of the moon, Jupiter, Venus & Saturn.” Another bought it for their 5-year-old who “could see the moon and its craters in his first try,” praising its easy setup and sturdy materials. This feedback confirms our assessment that it’s an ideal instrument for introducing children and families to astronomy.
However, the criticisms are just as consistent and align perfectly with our findings. The finderscope is a common point of frustration, described as “flimsy and difficult to use at times.” The 10mm eyepiece also receives frequent criticism. The most constructive feedback comes from users who offer solutions, with a near-unanimous recommendation to “buy a Barlow lens x2” to significantly improve magnification. One user even had a faulty LED on their finderscope and had to perform a minor repair, highlighting occasional quality control issues, though these seem to be rare. Overall, the user feedback paints a picture of a product that delivers brilliantly on its core promise, with a few minor, and easily remedied, flaws.
How the AstroMaster 70AZ Compares to the Competition
While the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope is a standout in its class, it exists in a crowded market. Here’s how it stacks up against three notable alternatives, each catering to a slightly different type of budding astronomer.
1. Celestron NexStar 8SE Computerised Telescope
- NEXSTAR COMPUTERISED TELESCOPE: The NexStar 8SE computerised telescope features celestron’s iconic orange tube design with updated technology and the latest features for amazing stargazing for...
- 8-INCH APERTURE: The eight-inch primary mirror in this Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope for adults and kids to be used together packs enough light-gathering ability to observe the best that our solar...
If the AstroMaster 70AZ is your first car, the NexStar 8SE is a luxury sports car. This is a massive leap in both capability and price. It’s a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a huge 8-inch (203mm) aperture, allowing it to gather vastly more light to see faint galaxies and nebulae in detail. Its defining feature is the fully computerized GoTo mount. After a simple alignment process, you can simply select an object from its 40,000-object database, and the telescope will automatically slew to and track it. This is the perfect choice for the serious beginner with a large budget who wants to see as much as possible without the challenge of manually finding objects.
2. SOLOMARK 130EQ Newtonian Reflector Telescope Adults
- 【130mm Large Aperture】Large aperture 130mm telescope, high resolution, good light collecting ability, imaging brighter, more suitable for the observation of deep space celestial objective.
- 【High Quality Optics】The telescope adopts a sturdy and light fram structure, the carbon fiber was covering on the telescope surface, sophisticated technology. Objective lens features fully-coated...
The SOLOMARK 130EQ represents a direct competitor at a similar price point but with a different design philosophy. As a Newtonian reflector, it uses mirrors instead of lenses and offers a much larger 130mm aperture. This gives it a significant advantage in light-gathering power, making it better suited for viewing dimmer deep-sky objects than the AstroMaster 70AZ. However, it comes with an Equatorial (EQ) mount, which is more complex to set up and use than an AZ mount, requiring polar alignment. This telescope is for the beginner who is willing to invest more time in learning the equipment in exchange for greater deep-sky performance.
3. Slokey Discover The World 40070 Telescope
- Explore The Night Sky: This telescope for kids and adults offers 16x-120x magnification, perfect for stargazing, Moon viewing, and planetary exploration with sharp, detailed celestial images
- High-Quality Optics: Featuring a 70mm aperture and 400mm focal length, this telescope for astronomy delivers clear, high-resolution views of stars, planets, and deep sky objects for immersive viewing
The Slokey 40070 is an alternative for those prioritizing portability and a lower budget. It shares the same 70mm aperture as the AstroMaster but has a much shorter 400mm focal length. This makes the optical tube extremely compact and lightweight, perfect for travel, hiking, or for younger children to handle. The trade-off is in magnification; it won’t provide the same detailed close-ups of planets. However, its wider field of view makes it great for sweeping across the Milky Way and observing large star clusters. It’s an excellent “grab-and-go” scope for the casual observer or as a supplementary, highly portable option.
Final Verdict: Is the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ the Right Telescope for You?
After countless hours under the stars, our conclusion is clear: the Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope is one of the best, if not the best, entry points into the hobby of astronomy currently available. It masterfully balances performance, ease of use, and value. Its sharp, clear views of the Moon and bright planets are more than enough to ignite a lifelong passion for the cosmos, and its tool-free, intuitive setup ensures that frustration never gets in the way of discovery. While it has minor flaws, namely the basic 10mm eyepiece and finicky finderscope, these are easily forgiven at its price point and can be addressed with simple upgrades over time.
We wholeheartedly recommend this telescope to families looking for a new way to explore together, to curious individuals ready to take their first serious step into stargazing, and to anyone looking for a high-quality, low-maintenance gift that truly keeps on giving. It removes the barriers and opens up the universe in a way that is accessible, affordable, and deeply rewarding. If you’re ready to transform those distant dots of light into vibrant worlds waiting to be explored, this telescope is your perfect vessel. You can check its current price and begin your celestial journey right here.
Last update on 2025-11-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API