Zhumell Eclipse 114 with Motor Drive Telescope Bundle

Somewhat satisfied

This was my first telescope purchase. It's a pretty good value at this price point and fit within my budget. I didn't expect it to be as good as the more expensive ones on ...Read complete review

This was my first telescope purchase. It's a pretty good value at this price point and fit within my budget. I didn't expect it to be as good as the more expensive ones on the market, but I think the Zhumell telescope is better quality than many of the cheap department store telescopes on the market.

The equatorial mount, once polar aligned, allowed me to track celestial objects by simply turning the RA axis knob occasionally. I also tried the motor drive but had some difficulty obtaining a speed that would keep the object in the center of the eyepiece for more than a minute or two. Maybe some more practice will bring better results. Also, I found some difficulty turning the motor drive on and off at will because a thumbscrew has to be tightened to fit into a notched groove on the RA axis. This groove moves whenever you turn the RA adjustment knob, which you do to center objects in the eyepiece. However, when you turn the RA knob to align it with the thumbscrew on the motor drive, it may move the object out of view in your eyepiece.

The tripod is lightweight which is a plus for portability. However, it doesn't fold up easily because of the triangular tray in the middle. The tray is nice to have for placing eyepieces however, and I'm glad it is there. The tripod is not very stable, but I don't expect that from a budget mount. In spite of the instability, objects would stay pretty steady in the eyepiece if I didn't bump the telescope.

I'd like to add a homemade piggyback mount for doing wide-angle astrophotography later. I seriously doubt the mount would be stable enough for photography of deep-space objects.

The declination circle has 0 degrees for the home position with the OTA being in alignment with the polar axis of the scope. From what I've read online, I understand this to be in error -- it should read 90 degrees in that position, so you'll need to do some mental arithmetic to use the coordinate system properly. I've read that most amateur astronomers with a mount like this use star hopping to find objects anyway, so it probably doesn't matter.

The finder scope is a little flimsy and isn't very bright. I'm afraid to bump it because it might slip out of alignment rather easily. I might add a non-magnifying finder scope on the OTA to supplement it.

The eyepiece bundle gives me a good selection of eyepieces. I like using the wide angle, 32 mm eyepiece. The 4 mm can also give a lot of magnification. I found atmosphere conditions limiting my viewing of Jupiter to 9 mm or so. Beyond that it looked blurry. I'm unsure how the eyepieces rate in optical quality, but am glad to have the extra eyepiece bundle. I haven't tried the filters yet.

The 114mm aperture isn't as big as larger scopes, but it gathers a decent amount of light for viewing the brighter objects as well as many dimmer objects that aren't visible to the naked eye. I was able to see the Orion M42 nebula last night under light polluted skies.

Overall, I'm happy with this scope as my first purchase. I've mentioned several negative aspects, but I'm able to accept them because I had lower expectations for this price point. If I had more money to spend, I would look elsewhere, but I think this was a good value for my budget.