Hope you get a kick back from all these sales. lol

Well like so many of your readers, I read your article and took the plunge as well. I immediately wrote my sister and sent her the info since she interested in purchasing a telescope for astronomical purposes. She is by far an amateur astronomer and I hated for her to invest in something expensive because right now it is just her dream to own a telescope someday. I was afraid she would try to buy something around $500 and use it and then stick it back in the back of the closet for the most part.

Question: I am 57 now and the eyes are going. See double stars were there are only one. Is there some headgear that can bring the sky into focus as it once was as a young man? I now wear bifocals as most of us old farts do.

Thanks and keep up the good work Tammy.

Ray

i'm sorry you were disappointed. please remember that your saying is correct – you do get what you pay for – but i felt the model i tested was well worth the asking price.

before you sell it, take an evening and try your luck with the moon. and don't forget to give it to your niece to try as well!

i'm on it!!

Also want to tell you that I read this article early Sunday morning, searched for the scope, found it at Telescopes.com on sale for $38 with free ground shipping.

And it arrived here at my home just a few minutes ago. It's cute! I can hardly wait to use it. Gonna do some stargazing with this and some binoculars the first clear night we get!

Thanks a lot for this review! I think I'll probably order one of these ASAP, as it's compact enough that I could pack it with me when I ride out to go camping on my bike, and my paycheque just came through, so I can hopefully take advantage of the last bit of clear summer skies.

falmastro? i had a litle look around at the companies that i know are reputable and it seems pretty much everyone is sold out at the moment. we must have generated a good response!

doug? the universal camera adapter. it clamps around the eyepiece and secures your camera on a slider type affair. just remember the tabletop tripod isn't really meant to balance that type of load and you'll probably need a regular camera tripod. oddy enough i have pretty good success just shooting through the eyepiece afocally with a camcorder like this:

i held it up the the eyepiece, wrapped my fingers around it, focused according to what i could see in the viewfinder screen and used the camera's internal zoom feature for the extra magnification. i'm not going to win any prizes, but all it took was a minute of my time.

I posted earlier about my order at OPT but they canceled it… This is there reply:

"Thank you for inquiring with OPT. Unfortunately we are unable to ship Celestron products outside of the United States or Canada due to a contractual obligation. We can ship them anywhere in the US, Canada and US territories, so if you have a US address that we can ship to then we would be happy to accommodate you. We can also ship to any APO or FPO (American Military) address in the world."

I live in the Netherlands, so its a no-go for me

it ain't easy to find a multi-purpose telescope a college student can keep in their dorm room… the apartment dweller can take out on their ledge-like balcony to peer out at the moon… or that someone who has a tough time paying for that extra tank of gas back and forth to work can afford for his daughter's birthday.

give it to your kids or grandkids as a starter telescope! if they break it? celestron replaces it. use it as a carry-on telescope when you travel – and buy an adapter an use it as a finderscope on your big lightbucket if you want. take it to public outreach events and let folks play with it. there are better ones out there, but it's performance is well worth what it costs.

Thank you for your reviews; they are huge help!
Dale

dale? yup. it's twice as much and doesn't have a tripod… but it does have a non-magnified sighting tube, celestron optics and the same guarantee! again, the c65 isn't the highest quality spotter out there – but, the point behind the article is that you can find a very inexpensive, single package way to introduce yourself to the hobby and decide if a larger investment is right for you. if it whets your appetite for more? then you know you should be saving your spare change to get telescope. if you only use it every now and again on a whim? then it didn't cost anything more than a date night out at the movies and it will be around forever to wait until you decide you want to play again.

"I have not read the review you saw. The last batch of Mini Mak I had were
so-so optically and the wee plastic tripod was nervous. I no longer
inventory this item"………..
"Mak designs have large central obstructions in the light path of about 35%.
They have larger focal length than other telescope designs and thus higher
magnifications for whatever eyepiece is involved.
I have the Celestron Ultima 65 spotting scope 18 – 55x zoom at $95. There
are no obstructions in the light path so the image will be brighter."

I was about to buy this little thing, but it looks like they don't ship outside of North America…

the mounting plate/bracket assembly that secures it to the included tabletop tripod is 100% a 1/4 20 standard camera tripod fitting. i would pretty much guarantee you that there are adapter plates out there to make it work with any alt-az or eq, too.

heck, there's probably even an adapter to turn it into a finderscope!

first and foremost… i do not read other's reviews and base my own opinions on what they have to say. i wanna' do my own thing. but, i am also a curious soul, so i went and read both on adorama and telescopes.com.

oddly enough, i couldn't find any information on adorama's site that said anything about it not being adaptable to a camera. i called the folks at OPT before i broke a piece of their equipment they had so kindly lent me and the sales rep told me it was t-thread adaptable to certain models of cameras and adaptable to any digital camera with a universal adapter but that it would introduce balance issues and require a more secure tripod.

now, here's the key.

if nothing else, i'm so practical and realistic that it hurts. i know that a $55 telescope isn't going to perform like a ritchey chretien, so why would i bother to invest as much money in adapting it to a camera as what it costs? sorry… my idea of practical – and cheap – astrophotography consists of holding my digital camera or camcorder up to the eyepiece, focusing it in and taking a quick pic afocally. if i wanted to do nature photography or astrophotography seriously, i'd know better… and i really think UT readers do, too.

the same goes with the reviews on telescope.com. you have to remember this is a tiny telescope – the size of bigger binocular tube – and it's going to perform like a binocular – not a 16" dobsonian. that's why the astronomical reviews weren't favorable… folks went into it expecting something that couldn't be. if i tell you that i could see M81 and M82, M6, M7, M13, etc. with the celestron c65? brother… the only thing stopping you from seeing them is either your skies or not knowing where they're at.

all in all, for $55 the celestron c65 mini-mak is a sweet little scope. it is perfect for those who have a very limited budget, limited space and unlimited interest. it's not a swarovski, and it's dang sure not the hubble… but it sure is a lot of fun!

Now if only that Ipod I got on Ebay hadn't been picked up by customs, I might actually have had the money now …