Celestron 22202 AstroFi 102 Wi-Fi Maksutov Wireless Reflecting Telescope, Black

Did some research before purchasing, I read all the reviews indicating wifi dropping issues but have not experienced this when using an iPhone. I used this telescope for hours one night and there were no issues. The eyepieces would need to be upgraded to improve the image quality., which is the same for most telescopes on the market at this price. This is a great value for a beginner’s telescope package. Having the motorized mount is convenient in light polluted areas. Using star align method is easy to get the Goto system aligned. Followed the instructions and aligned the red dot sight with the scope during the day time, this helped alignment with 3 stars at night. It’s tricky using the app to know what star you’re physically looking at in the sky, but if using compass mode in the app and holding the phone up you can see that the app shows a brighter star than the surrounding star so that’s mostly likely the star you’re physically looking at.Update: Still working great. I enabled guided access on my iPhone when using the SkyPortal app. When guided access is enabled, your iPhone will remain at that screen and not turn off. This helps tremendously for when you’re having a long night of Stargazing. I also enable the iPhone color filter through the accessibility options. I use the red filter, which makes everything red on my phone and it helps cut out any blinding white lights that will affect your vision during stargazing sessions. It also helps save your phone battery. I used this scope for 4 hours, with my phone constantly being on during the entire time and only drop a small percentage of my phone battery. I also use a 12v battery rechargeable power bank instead of 8 AA batteries to power the mount.

I got this from the Amazon Warehouse and it looks and works great. Three star alignment with the phone app was easy and it found objects reliably. I use it mostly for the moon and planets, as a compliment to my smart telescopes which all have a wide angle of view compared to this one.

It is very difficult if not impossible to get the telescope to auto-align, or align at all, even when focused on Saturn or Jupiter, it will just say that it can’t be aligned. Very frustrating. Telescope works good when it is set to a planet using the app, but it won’t auto follow.

the wifi app thing sucks ok let me tell you I learned that the wifi doesn't make the telescope easier to use it makes it harder because if your phone dies your tablet dies you are stuck you cant control the scope the skyportal app and how the advertise it as being able to point your phone at objects in the sky to have telescope goto to is only works with you breaking your back trying to get it to align with three bright starts when I could not align it with the moon and jupiter that was it for me . Its made very well looks nice and the images I took were great but if you want to have complete control over the telescope you want the hand controller because it isnt going to die on you also forget about using the batteries total waste you must get power cord or you will be dead in a hour it takes that long just to get used to it . My feed back to company give the customer the hand controller as a back up dont charge them over a 100 dollars for it when you give to customers with other goto scopes for free . The app crashes only with using the scope other than its full of info and its great for seeing where things are thats it . I even paid for the SkySafari app which is the company who made the app for celestron and I got the same experience the app crashes telescope is lost just spins like a lost puppy very frustrating. .Most important if you are still reading this real review if you want to have auto alignment where you dont have to go outside and break your back looking for 3 stars in the sky you have to purchase the starsense auto align module its like too much money lol with that and the wifi module you then can have a real goto for dummies but you looking at 1k at least not counting a DSLR if you taking pictures . I dont recommend this for astrophotography.

The media could not be loaded. Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of Celestron Telescopes. I also own a Celestron Nexstar 8 that of course has much better light gathering power than the Astrofi 102, but this little telescope has big features. Once you understand the software it is a great scope and my new go to scope for quick set up and viewing. You will run into wifi difficulties if you are near a stronger wifi signal than the scope. Connectivity issues are easy to remedy by temporarily ignoring all other wifi signals from the settings tab on your phone. I have yet to have a single problem with a dropped signal communicating with the scope.Update after a year of use: The wifi signal now drops constantly and I gave up and purchased the handset. The handset software is rather difficult to download and get loaded and running, but once installed it works perfectly. If I had to do it all over again I wold spend a little more and get a 5 or 6se and scrap the whole wifi idea.The pros:-Light Weight, easily to pack and set up (done in about 2 minutes)-Once you master the fairly easy software you can be tracking objects quickly-No more typing in coordinates and time of day as the scope uses your phone for all that information-Good optics-No wires from a hand controller to get in the way or worry about-Clever built in eye piece phone holder for group viewing and taking photos (it is built into the main optical lens cover making the lens cover dual purpose)-It can also support a hand controller if that is what you are used to-Easily Fits in a backpack and the stand will strap onto the backpack for a really portable scopeCons:-Unlike other Celestron Maskutov scopes you can NOT remove the scope from the stand and use this scope as a table top scope. This is the biggest negative for me and why I gave it 4 stars-The plug for connecting power is very cheap and it could break if you snag the power cord while slewing-It does NOT come with a 12 volt AC power supply or batteriesOverall this is a really nice scope due to it's wifi feature, light weight and ease of use. Your first time using it could take some time to get set up and gain an understanding of the alignment procedure. It would be nice if it was able to be used on tabletop. I may just have to custom make a table top stand for it.This video was taken on a very cloudy night with an iPhone attached to the built in phone holder on the lens cap. Stock 45mm lense with no filters.