Celestron 22403 Inspire 100AZ Refractor Smartphone Adapter Built-In Refracting Telescope - Blue

Product Information

The finder included with the Inspire 100AZ is Celestron’s “StarPointer Pro” red dot finder. Advertised as an improvement over Celestron’s standard “StarPointer” (itself a generic red dot finder like the kind sold with many beginner telescopes), the StarPointer Pro is basically a failed attempt to copy the Telrad. It has two circles instead of a dot in the middle, both of which are exceedingly wide. It is somewhat hard to actually centre anything in the finder, or align it precisely, or keep it aligned with the telescope particularly well. However, for a telescope with a fairly short focal length and a consequently wide field of view, like the Inspire 100AZ, it works well enough to get targets in the field of view most of the time. But if you’re hunting for faint fuzzies that you might not recognise at first glance, we might recommend replacing the StarPointer.

The Inspire 100az comes with two eyepieces; a 10mm and a 20mm. This is excellent and provides you with a variable magnification range depending on your preferences. At the lower end you can expect a 33x magnification and at the higher end it scales to 241x. StaryNight Software It also includes a professional grade red dot finderscope, a ninety-degree erect image diagonal, a foldable steel tripod with a max extension of 47”, a red light flashlight, an attachable accessory tray and access to Starry Night Basic astronomy software. The Sky-Watcher Heritage 130P provides a significant boost in light gathering and resolving power over the Inspire 100AZ at the same focal length, free of chromatic aberration and with a sturdy, easy-to-use tabletop Dobsonian mount. Here are some other features that users report to be thoroughly impressed with: Variable and High Magnification Being a larger achromat with a relatively fast focal ratio (by refractor standards, anything below f/10 is considered fast), the Inspire 100AZ does suffer from some chromatic aberration, or “false color”, which manifests itself as an obnoxious purple halo around bright targets such as the Moon, Jupiter, Venus, and many double stars. Some people will spend thousands of dollars on an ED triplet apochromatic refractor to get basically the same views as the Inspire 100AZ without the color; you can simply choose to ignore it. Though it does prevent one from getting the sharpest images possible of the Moon and planets, for 99% of viewing, the Inspire 100AZ’s optics do just fine. You really need not worry.Despite that, it will not get as clear and sharp views of deep sky objects as a dedicated reflector geared for deep space viewing. It will also lag behind more focused refractors that excel at getting views of high contrast things like the rings of Saturn. Again, it can do everything well but nothing spectacularly. This isn't a telescope that will prove useful for seeing or photographing deep-sky objects, but is ideal to observe and photograph brighter objects with an appropriate smartphone or camera adapter. The wide field of view means you'll be able to see whole globular star clusters and nebulae across the frame. The 1.25″ star diagonal that comes with the Inspire 100AZ is also mostly made of plastic. It has an Amici erecting prism design, which makes sure that the images are correct both left to right and up to down. Unless you plan on frequently reading signs and snooping on people’s reading material from a distance, this feature is essentially worthless and comes at a cost, too. Due to the way it works, any Amici erecting prism produces annoying bright spikes, glare, and additional chromatic aberration on bright targets—which doesn’t help when there are already glare issues with the dew shield and chromatic aberration from the objective lens itself to begin with. Terrestrially, the telescope doubles up to be used as a Spotting Scope which will enable you to use it to enjoy when Bird-Watching, Hiking, or simple land-observations. Just use the provided Star Diagonal and you can easily erect your images.

The relative size and weight of all the components affect its overall portability. The mount will of course add to this. If a telescope has a shorter Focal Length it is typically more portable, but will require better quality eyepieces to ensure great views. Pros and Cons of a Refractor: The Inspire 100 is a short refractor telescope perfect for terrestrial and celestial viewing on the go. T he Inspire 100AZ features the largest aperture in the Inspire family line and its short tube offers a wider field of view perfectly suited for viewing the planets, moon, star clusters and brighter deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy at night and with the erect image star diagonal makes the optical tube ideal for using as a spotting scope during the day. This is one of the best entry-level telescopes on the market. If I was new to astronomy, this would be one of those telescopes that I would most likely get. With its relative power, ease of use, portability, sleek design and the range of accessories make this a brilliant first telescope. Pricing and Where to BuyThere’s also a small red flashlight included with the Inspire telescopes, which mounts to the centre of the hub of the tripod below the mount head and can be detached from the mount with the turn of a knob. It’s a little too bright to use as a plain flashlight at night, but the diffuser built into the tripod makes it into a really great tray light to softly illuminate your accessories without completely ruining your night vision.