Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ Reviewed – Not Recommended

The Powerseeker 70mm Optical Tube Overview

The Celestron PowerSeeker 70 EQ is a 70mm aperture achromatic doublet refractor with a focal ratio of f/10. The 70mm of aperture with the old 2x per mm rule of thumb for maximum magnification means that I can’t use the scope for more than 140x magnification without having a fuzzy, broken-down image. This is contrary to the Celestron’s outrageous claims of 525x magnification, which they say we can achieve (and should supposedly use) with the scope.

The optical quality of the Powerseeker 70 was quite good when I tried one. At f/10 focal ratio, there is some chromatic aberration as expected, but nothing significant enough to ruin high-power views with this telescope.

The scope’s focuser is a 1.25” rack-and-pinion made mostly of plastic. I expect this to be the case with almost any scope in this price range. It functions just fine. The focuser even includes a tension adjustment knob, should you find the focuser to be too loose or too tight.

The Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ’s tube attaches to the EQ-1 mount with a pair of hinged, felt-lined tube rings that bolt to the mount saddle. This is more primitive than the Vixen-style dovetail rail system supplied with more expensive telescopes, but it used to be the norm for most instruments and works just fine.

Accessories for the PowerSeeker 70EQ

In my opinion, the accessories of the Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ are really its main weakness, and I’m not really surprised by it.

The Amici-Prism Star Diagonal

Like all decent refracting telescopes, the Celestron PowerSeeker 70 EQ includes a star diagonal, which deflects the image by 90 degrees for more comfortable viewing. One thing I like about this diagonal is that it is conveniently designed to be ergonomically pleasing to be used as a handle. My best guess is that during product testing Celestron saw that people like to grab the diagonal to use this way, and so they designed it with that in mind.

Unfortunately, the star diagonal is a cheap Amici-erecting prism unit.

An Amici prism is nice for terrestrial viewing as it makes images correct left-right and up-down. But there’s no up or down in space, and the amici design of the prism causes stars and other bright objects to have an annoying, distracting, and bright spike running through them. It also absorbs a fair amount of the light entering it, dimming our views.

The Unsuitable Mediocre Eyepieces

All of the PowerSeeker refractors include two eyepieces: a 20mm Kellner providing 35x with the 70EQ and a 4mm Ramsden providing 175x.

In my testing, the 20mm Kellner is usable and of decent quality, but 35x is a bit much magnification for a low-power eyepiece with a 70mm instrument—a 25mm eyepiece providing 28x or a 32mm providing 22x would have been a lot better.

It’s impossible for me to see anything through the 4mm Ramsden. It provides a narrow field of view and fuzzy images. Also, 175x magnification is too much for the telescope to handle, so it’s basically useless apart from serving as a backup dust cap.

The Almost Useless Finderscope and Barlow

The finderscope with all Powerseekers is a 5×24 unit with a stopped-down plastic lens and a simple bracket that makes it impossible for me to align well. As a result, the finder is nearly useless and makes finding or even aiming the telescope at anything besides the Moon extremely frustrating to me.

The 3x Barlow lens supplied with the PowerSeekers is an utterly rubbish all-plastic unit that costs Celestron less than $1 to produce. It cannot provide a remotely decent image. I’d toss it into the garbage.

The EQ-1 Equatorial Mount

Despite being inexpensive, I believe that the EQ-1 mount supplied with the Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ is actually a good match for it.

The motions are reasonably smooth, and the mount’s extruded aluminum legs are quite steady with such a lightweight tube. Furthermore, the whole setup is pretty light at about 14 pounds.

Obviously, the little EQ1 is incapable of any deep-sky astrophotography, but that’s to be expected at this price point. However, if I equip the mount with the Celestron’s Logic Drive on for motorized tracking and then slap an adapter on the mount to put a camera, I could get some decent tracked shots with just a short to medium focal length (<300mm) telephoto lens and moderate exposure times.

My major complaint with EQ-1 is that virtually every part of the mount has a tendency to come loose, be it the clutches or the bolt preventing the whole thing from spinning in azimuth.

The tripod leg locks are also plastic with metal inserts. I have witnessed one collapse on more than one occasion and it subsequently became permanently damaged.

Additionally, setting up, balancing, and aiming an equatorial mount is generally more complicated for beginners. Getting the EQ-1 to be polar aligned is also difficult than usual.

Should I buy a Used PowerSeeker 70EQ?

Unless it’s extremely cheap, a used Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ probably isn’t worth the trouble. I’d much rather go with a 4” or 4.5” tabletop reflector if one is available.

Alternative Recommendations

If you’re looking for a better scope than the Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ but have a budget of $150 or below, there are a number of superior options:

• The Zhumell Z100 has larger aperture than the 70AZ, sharp parabolic optics, a wide field of view, decent included accessories, and are stable and easy to aim.
• The Celestron FirstScope doesn’t have quite as sharp views as the 70EQ, but offers a significantly easier-to-use mount and better accessories.

For finding more options, we recommend you check out our Telescope Ranking page.

Aftermarket Accessory Recommendations

Upgrading the PowerSeeker 70EQ is probably not worth the expense and hassle. You’d be better off saving your money for a different, and preferably larger/better, telescope.

What can you see with the Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ?

The Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ’s relatively small aperture makes it primarily useful for viewing the moon, planets, and double stars.

• I had no trouble seeing Jupiter’s moons, cloud belts, and the Great Red Spot.
• Saturn’s rings and a few moons could also be seen.
• Mars is a red dot with a few dark regions and an ice cape when it’s close to Earth.
• Uranus and Neptune, if you can find them at all, are tiny, bluish, star-like dots. 

Besides solar system objects, the PowerSeeker 70EQ can show us some of the brighter deep-sky objects such as open star clusters, the Orion Nebula, and I could see with the 70EQ present themselves as little more than fuzzy balls or dots, and city light pollution can even render them invisible altogether.