Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a review specifically for the Celestron PS 114mm EQ. I got this as a gift from my daughter. After using it a few nights, I did check the mirror collimation with the $28 Celestron 1.25" collimation eyepiece (which I already had). The mirror alignment was very very close, so it needed only minimal adjustment which had no observable effects. On the third night I was able to see the moon (again) and the Orion nebula at various magnification (20mm eyepiece with and without Barlow). I was also able to see - with a Celestron Ploessel 9mm eyepiece - Jupiter and it four moons, the two main cloud stripes on Jupiter itself, and maybe some weaker ones. And the shadow of one moon on Jupiter itself, a tiny black dot near one of the poles. I do like the lightweight aluminum mount as well, it is solid if the legs are not completely extended, and it is light enough to carry around without getting a hernia. The finder scope works well for me, just in case I re-align it every time I take the telescope out. This telescope is very sharp, and a very good value right out of the box. And easy to focus. Five stars!! EDIT: Recently (February) I did buy and install the Celestron motor drive ($33 on Amazon) and it works perfectly. Once the motor drive speed is adjusted properly with the small knob (which is fairly easy to do), it keeps say Jupiter centered for close to an hour with a 7mm eyepiece. Note that the drive speed only needs to be set once, for a given latitude. Note that the Celestron 127EQ and 114EQ are quite similar in design and price, nevertheless this one has a much longer tube and does not have a correcting eyepiece in the focus tube, which seems to make it significantly sharper, or at least much easier to collimate. Recently (April) I got an inexpensive laser collimator (lk1 from seben dot com, identical to the orion lasermate) and tried it on this scope, even though it did not seem to need it. The whole job is very easy, takes less than 5-10 mins if you know what to do (there is no focuser lens in the focusing tube, this is NOT a Bird-Jones design!). The adjustments were minimal and there was no noticeable change in sharpness, as I said above mine was flawless out of the box. Look in the picture section to see my recent picture of Jupiter. Best additions to this telescope are imo the $30 Celestron motor drive (I love it!), a better quality achromatic $40 Celestron 2x Omni Barlow, and a 9mm Celestron Omni eyepiece($20 ; the telescope seems capable of a lot more than what the rather basic included eyepieces suggest). You will then be in telescope heaven, for very little money. I have also found that this scope is quite well suited to astrophotography of the planets, in my case in combination with the very reliable Celestron clock drive (have not changed a battery yet on that on in three months of use) and an inexpensive webcam (a logitech C310 in my case). PS. Added pictures of Jupiter and the Moon (April 2014). Added more pictures of Jupiter and Mars, on the latter I can clearly see one of the polar ice caps (April 2014). Took a nice picture of the Cassini division on Saturn (May 2014). Added another excellent picture I got of Jupiter on a very clear day (March 2015), you can clearly see multiple rings as well as details of the main ring clouds.