As a complete novice I was looking for a dual purpose telescope for celestial and terrestrial viewing. Living in a town environment but within easy walking distance to open countryside, I wanted a lightweight mobile scope that I could easily carry or stick in the car. The Celestron Travel Scope 70 DX with BackPack seemed to fit the bill!

​After doing a little research on the internet for a telescope that would be suitable for an adult novice but also have the ability to be useful for an intermediate, I came across the Celestron Astromaster 114EQ Astro Telescope. This seemed to tick all the boxes for me with its affordable price and a range of features that would allow a beginner like me to instantly enjoy.

I was given a book on stargazing so started looking for a telescope, and having done a small bit of research decided on a Celestron as had been told they were a good make. Having looked on the web I decided on purchasing the Celestron LT114AZ telescope as it was a good mid-price and looked simple for a novice. Product ordered, the next day it arrived.

I recently bought the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ, as I was really intrigued by being able to use a smartphone to guide me as a fairly novice hobby astronomer through the night sky. As with every new technology I was at first sceptic but… This actually works amazingly well. With no prior experience of the night sky and celestial objects you can take this telescope out, setup your phone and just like that, you are looking at the moon, star systems and various planets!

I required a USB flash drive to transfer SATNAV files from my Win10 PC to my car. This is a procedure I carry out once a year so the plan was to utilise the flash drive with my Samsung smart TV timeshift feature in between because my aging SanDisk 32gb was beginning to degrade possibly due to repeated recording & deletion of TV programs.

I waited over a week for a clear night, then set myself up for an evening of astronomy. The Starsense application is nothing short of genius. Once everything is aligned and your mobile phone is in the telescope's cradle, you press a couple of buttons to select what you'd like to see, the app works it's magic and directional arrows appear on screen, you follow these and a green lock on symbol appears, look through the viewfinder and there is your celestial body of choice. It really is that simple.

After doing a lot of research the Celestron 130EQ newtonian reflector model kept coming up and now it's clear to see why it's a great starting point.... Using the telescope itself we tested it out on some bright stars by configuring the viewfinder and taking our time to learn to use the different dials. We progressively moved onto different stars which just look like bright tiny lights in the distance but is fascinating to see.

I have always been interested in astronomy and the night sky but with a bit more time on my hands in lockdown I decided to get a bit more serious. That said I had no idea about telescopes and specifications, lenses, eyepieces etc so I looked around on the net and plenty of sites seemed to recommend Celestron as good beginner scopes. The 130eq seemed about the most powerful in the beginners price range that I was looking at and had good reviews for the quality of the optics and general build quality. It also seemed to be portable which many of the more powerful scopes aren't as the wight, length and bulk increases. As it can be used for daytime terrestrial viewing this is a plus point.

Powering a telescope using a suitable battery source rather than mains power has the advantage that the telescope, without the restriction of a mains lead, becomes both portable and safer - due to the absence of at least one tripping hazard! Lead-acid batteries have the disadvantage of being excessively bulky and heavy and in my experience have a relatively short life.

I love my SanDisk Clip Sport GO MP3 player and would certainly recommend it to everybody interested. The sound quality is fantastic. I would say this is a must buy for those looking for a reliable MP3 player at an unbelievable price

Not only was it the best price at the time of searching but also promised a swift delivery, which meant I might still make for some Pink Moon spotting