Celestron PowerSeeker 114EQ is a sad story. It has an incredible optical tube that comes with a shaky mount and useless accessories.
Summary Review
Although with some upgrades you can turn this telescope into a great performer, there are definitely better options for the same price. And if you are a beginner, you probably wouldn’t want to bother with most of the upgrades anyway.
Optics
The optics are surprisingly good. The primary mirror is spherical, which is easy to manufacture and cheap. But thanks to the long optical tube(1m) most of the image defects disappear.
The optics provide you great detail with planets and the Moon. Clouds and Moon’s of Jupiter is visible with a good amount of detail, and the Saturn’s Rings looks easily distinguishable from the planet. With a good eyepiece, you can catch a glimpse of polar caps on Mars and Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
The Moon looks spectacular with most telescopes and with this one it is no different. You can get great detail with mountain ranges and craters.
Deep space performance is solid. Brighter deep space objects such as the Pleiades Star Cluster, Andromeda Galaxy, Hercules Star Cluster and Orion Nebula look bright and detailed.
Mount
This is the most unfortunate part of this telescope. It is obvious that Celestron put the optical tube on this mount to lower the price and increase the profit a little, but the mount is simply too wobbly at high magnifications. Of course, if you just use the slow-motion knobs to move the telescope and prevent yourself from touching the mount, you can get a smooth motion. But that gets frustrating after a while.
This the reason why we recommend a tabletop Dobsonian at this price range. They are easier to use and have solid mounts. A Zhumell Z114 would provide a little less power but would be much more convenient.
Accessories
The accessories are well-made and will last you a lifetime.
Just kidding. They are cheapest versions available and barely provide a decent image. The 20mm eyepiece does its job and is adequate for the beginning, but the 4mm eyepiece simply belongs to trash.
The 3x Barlow is a marketing scam. This telescope cannot provide a quality image at the magnifications it provides.
The 5×24 finder is frustrating to use. Should have been a red dot finder.
The erect-prism corrects the images’ rotation. It works but dims the image quite a bit.
Drawbacks
The biggest drawback is the mount. A stable mount is an absolute necessity for a telescope, and it is shame that a 1 meter long optical tube comes with a plastic EQ-1.
The accessories are garbage. I’m sorry to be this blunt, but it is true.
Conclusion
You can get better accessories and you probably will with a budget telescope. But the mount is a problem. It takes time and effort to put an optical tube on a different mount.
You can get better accessories and you probably will with a budget telescope. But the mount is a problem. It takes time and effort to put an optical tube on a different mount.
Get this telescope if you somehow find it for a cheap price. Other than that, there are better models at this price range such as Zhumell Z114.
In-Depth Review and Technical Specifications
PowerSeeker 114EQ is a combination of exceptional optics and a terrible mount. The low-quality accessories are negligible since you can upgrade them, but you can’t solve the shaky mount problem easily. Especially if you are a beginner, which is the most likely buyer type for this telescope.
Optics
A spherical primary mirror has multiple focal points which you obviously wouldn’t want with any telescope. But after f/7-8, the defects become tolerable. That is why this is the only model in the PowerSeeker line that deserves the name “Power Seeker”. It definitely provides a good amount of power for the price.
The detail you get from the planets are pretty awesome. The Great Red Spot, Clouds and Moons of Jupiter are easily visible with detail and contrast. The Rings are easily distinguishable from Saturn and Titan is visible with a good eyepiece. Here is a video of Saturn taken with this telescope. Remember this was taken with a better third party eyepiece, so you won’t get this image out of the box. But in real life the image also looks better, so you have to make your own judgment about this.
The Moon looks absolutely amazing. The lack of color defects and high-power make the image sharp and bright. Here is a video to give you an example, as we’ve said before the image looks much better in real life.
So with a good eyepiece such as a Plössl, the optical power of this telescope is mesmerizing. This brings us to the mount.
Mount
If only Celestron could provide an EQ-2 with this telescope… Then this model would easily be worth the price and maybe even higher. But it doesn’t.
An EQ-1 can barely carry the 80EQ, the smaller version of this model. After the 80EQ you need a better mount since the optical tubes become heavier and the power of the telescope increases.
PowerSeeker 114 fails the mount test. And it is a test any telescope you buy must pass since they are used for years to come.
Accessories
This is also a part PowerSeeker 114 fails grandly. But you shouldn’t give a higher importance to this part than the mount since any telescope in this price range comes with garbage accessories to keep the price down.
The eyepieces are awful.
The 20mm eyepiece provides 45x magnification. It is the only one of the accessories that is not useless out of the box. It is usable on Jupiter, but Saturn may disappoint you. The Moon looks pretty decent.
The 4mm eyepiece provides too much power with a too-small lens and with an annoyingly short eye-relief. Don’t use it.
The 3x Barlow lens is a marketing scam. It triples the magnification with any eyepiece, but the image quality is lowered greatly.
The 5×24 finder works fine, but it hard to align. We don’t understand why Celestron doesn’t provide a red dot finder which are also cheap and easier to use.
The focuser is smooth and solid. It is the only accessory that can be considered high-quality.
The erect-prism is usable for terrestrial viewing.
Drawbacks
The shaky mount is the major drawback. Adding to that the awful accessories.
Conclusion
The PowerSeeker 114EQ is a sad story because with only one change it has the potential to become a strong recommendation, the mount.
The accessories are easily changeable, but any beginner will have a difficult time changing a wobbly mount. That is why we cannot recommend this telescope. You should only get it if you find it for cheaper or confident that you can change the mount in the future.