Celestron AstroFi 102 Wi-Fi Maksutov Wireless Reflecting Telescope

Did some research before purchasing, I read all the reviews indicating wifi dropping issues but have not experienced this when using an iPhone. I used this telescope for hours one night and there were no issues. The eyepieces would need to be upgraded to improve the image quality., which is the same for most telescopes on the market at this price. This is a great value for a beginner’s telescope package. Having the motorized mount is convenient in light polluted areas. Using star align method is easy to get the Goto system aligned. Followed the instructions and aligned the red dot sight with the scope during the day time, this helped alignment with 3 stars at night. It’s tricky using the app to know what star you’re physically looking at in the sky, but if using compass mode in the app and holding the phone up you can see that the app shows a brighter star than the surrounding star so that’s mostly likely the star you’re physically looking at. Update: Still working great. I enabled guided access on my iPhone when using the SkyPortal app. When guided access is enabled, your iPhone will remain at that screen and not turn off. This helps tremendously for when you’re having a long night of Stargazing. I also enable the iPhone color filter through the accessibility options. I use the red filter, which makes everything red on my phone and it helps cut out any blinding white lights that will affect your vision during stargazing sessions. It also helps save your phone battery. I used this scope for 4 hours, with my phone constantly being on during the entire time and only drop a small percentage of my phone battery. I also use a 12v battery rechargeable power bank instead of 8 AA batteries to power the mount.

The best part of this scope is the built-in WiFi connectivity and the nice cell phone adapter. I would recommend getting some stronger eye pieces because this scope (130mm) has a lot of power. So much so that I can’t even look at the moon w/o using a moon filter because it hurts my eyes. I took the attached picture using my cellphone. I have also taken nice pictures of deep space objects but would recommend using a good app that opens up the ISO on your phone to gather even more light. Also, I would recommend an external battery to power the scope because the one it comes with doesn’t last very long. Lastly, if you use a dedicated old cellphone to control the telescope, which I recommend, make sure to set your setting so your phone doesn’t automatically lock after a few minutes. Always keep in open and you will not lose any connection with the telescope. Too easy!

Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of Celestron Telescopes. I also own a Celestron Nexstar 8 that of course has much better light gathering power than the Astrofi 102, but this little telescope has big features. Once you understand the software it is a great scope and my new go to scope for quick set up and viewing. You will run into wifi difficulties if you are near a stronger wifi signal than the scope. Connectivity issues are easy to remedy by temporarily ignoring all other wifi signals from the settings tab on your phone. I have yet to have a single problem with a dropped signal communicating with the scope. Update after a year of use: The wifi signal now drops constantly and I gave up and purchased the handset. The handset software is rather difficult to download and get loaded and running, but once installed it works perfectly. If I had to do it all over again I wold spend a little more and get a 5 or 6se and scrap the whole wifi idea. The pros: -Light Weight, easily to pack and set up (done in about 2 minutes) -Once you master the fairly easy software you can be tracking objects quickly -No more typing in coordinates and time of day as the scope uses your phone for all that information -Good optics -No wires from a hand controller to get in the way or worry about -Clever built in eye piece phone holder for group viewing and taking photos (it is built into the main optical lens cover making the lens cover dual purpose) -It can also support a hand controller if that is what you are used to -Easily Fits in a backpack and the stand will strap onto the backpack for a really portable scope Cons: -Unlike other Celestron Maskutov scopes you can NOT remove the scope from the stand and use this scope as a table top scope. This is the biggest negative for me and why I gave it 4 stars -The plug for connecting power is very cheap and it could break if you snag the power cord while slewing -It does NOT come with a 12 volt AC power supply or batteries Overall this is a really nice scope due to it's wifi feature, light weight and ease of use. Your first time using it could take some time to get set up and gain an understanding of the alignment procedure. It would be nice if it was able to be used on tabletop. I may just have to custom make a table top stand for it. This video was taken on a very cloudy night with an iPhone attached to the built in phone holder on the lens cap. Stock 45mm lense with no filters.

It is very difficult if not impossible to get the telescope to auto-align, or align at all, even when focused on Saturn or Jupiter, it will just say that it can’t be aligned. Very frustrating. Telescope works good when it is set to a planet using the app, but it won’t auto follow.

the wifi app thing sucks ok let me tell you I learned that the wifi doesn't make the telescope easier to use it makes it harder because if your phone dies your tablet dies you are stuck you cant control the scope the skyportal app and how the advertise it as being able to point your phone at objects in the sky to have telescope goto to is only works with you breaking your back trying to get it to align with three bright starts when I could not align it with the moon and jupiter that was it for me . Its made very well looks nice and the images I took were great but if you want to have complete control over the telescope you want the hand controller because it isnt going to die on you also forget about using the batteries total waste you must get power cord or you will be dead in a hour it takes that long just to get used to it . My feed back to company give the customer the hand controller as a back up dont charge them over a 100 dollars for it when you give to customers with other goto scopes for free . The app crashes only with using the scope other than its full of info and its great for seeing where things are thats it . I even paid for the SkySafari app which is the company who made the app for celestron and I got the same experience the app crashes telescope is lost just spins like a lost puppy very frustrating. . Most important if you are still reading this real review if you want to have auto alignment where you dont have to go outside and break your back looking for 3 stars in the sky you have to purchase the starsense auto align module its like too much money lol with that and the wifi module you then can have a real goto for dummies but you looking at 1k at least not counting a DSLR if you taking pictures . I dont recommend this for astrophotography.

I got this from the Amazon Warehouse and it looks and works great. Three star alignment with the phone app was easy and it found objects reliably. I use it mostly for the moon and planets, as a compliment to my smart telescopes which all have a wide angle of view compared to this one.

Assembled in 5 minutes. Works great out of the box. Wifi wouldn't connect on one occasion so far but only for about 30 seconds then it's fine. Would definitely get a 2x lens too for planets or anything other than the moon. Finder scope is tricky to get used to as it doesn't actually line up (like a scope on a rifle for example) so you have to look from the exact distance and angle everytime for it to work as intended which can get tricky

The optics appear to work well, but the computerized mount and phone control features are a joke. I originally purchased this unit as a lightweight travel scope for deep sky imaging. Since I already owned a Celestron CPC800 telescope that I’m very happy with (albeit at 62 lbs it’s a bit heavy for easy transport to remote viewing sites), I was hoping that this telescope would function equally well for go-to viewing and astrophotography. Upon delivery the equipment was in excellent condition and appeared to be brand new (not a return item). I even checked out the optics during daylight hours and was impressed that the mirror alignment was well collimated after so many miles of transport and handling. My disappointment came after setting up the motorized mount software on my iPhone. Although the app worked as advertised to move the optical tube in alt-azimuth directions and correctly detected my sites latitude and longitude, I noted that the iPhone Bluetooth connection was frequently disconnecting during use, despite never being more than a few feet from the scope. Since I had read several reviews from other disgruntled customers reporting this same problem, I pre-purchased a Celestron’s NexStar+ plug in hand controller to operate the go-to features of the mount in the absence of the phone. Unfortunately neither control scheme would work for alignment. I could easily move the scope to center the sun in the middle of the eyepiece (with appropriate solar filters in place, of course), but the computerized tracking features of the Astro Fi 130 would not work even though I received a message that the alignment was successful. Especially disturbing was the fact that when I would ask the mount to slew to another target like the moon (which I could easily see in the daylight sky), the telescope would go “crazy” and begin to move the optical tube way out of position to a point below the plane of the horizon and had to be manually halted to prevent the optical tube from banging into mount and tripod and damaging the motor, all despite having the correct latitude and longitude coordinates in the system and the tripod mount perfectly level. Since I already own a CPC800, I am quite familiar with the computerized hand controller operating instructions for Celestron products, so these problems were not due to my unfamiliarity with Celestron’s unique go-to features. I immediately boxed up the equipment and shipped it back. I simply do not have time to fight with this unit to make it work as advertised, and so purchased another supplier’s Newtonian product line. So disappointed in Celestron. I can only imagine the frustration and discouragement an inexperienced user must feel when encountering similar types of problems, thinking it’s due to their lack of knowledge and not the fault of the computerized tracking system (which was the case here).

Zufrieden

The Astro fi 130 is exactly what I had hoped for. Assembly was quite easy and the set up (aligning it etc…) was easy with a little practice (as the instructions actually say). The quality of the view is really amazing and, once setup, finding and tracking stars, planets etc.. is simple using the app. I have to mention the spectacularly GREAT customer service provided by Rod. I was missing a part and he solved the problem quickly and shipped it to me very quickly. My whole experience with this product is wonderful.

This is a fantastic beginner telescope. Easy to set up and easy to use once you’ve got some clear skies. It can be difficult to align the scope using the app, and I’ve had some disconnection issues, but I think that’s my phone’s fault (it keeps disconnecting from scope and switching to home network). The photos are views of the Moon from the 10mm and 25mm eyepiece. I literally put my iPhone on top of the eyepiece and snapped them. They are unedited. Blame the poor focus on my guerilla style photography. I was so focused on wanting to see the Moon I just took some quick snaps and went back to looking! Very happy beginner astronomer!

Fácil de usar y de alinear. Aconsejo usar un ordenador para conectar vía wifi. El móvil pierde con facilidad la conexión. Es un problema de los móviles, no del equipo.

great telescope, easy to use, it has wifi access point, you can connect your tablet or mobile to​ it run via free planetarium app. Just click on a planet or start and telescope automatically point on it.