NexStar 8SE

Dear Fellow Astronomers... If Buying One, Please read All. When setting up, don't forget the bubble-level supplied. It is an essential part of an ALT-AZ mount. Get the mount "flat" to the ground. If on old grass, with a thatch, or soft ground, tripod pads may help with "drift", over a session. With this sorted, what can I say ?!! Amazing Telescope is the minimum comment. You have gained a Portable, Superb value telescope. It is obvious that other eyepieces may be a requirement. I bought a case of assorted eyepieces and filters (Celestron). I treated myself to a zoom lens too, great fun, but not essential (using many lenses in the construction, shall reduce brightness, but if your target is the moon or planets, or bright nebulae ..is interesting). Having read other reviews (thank you all), I bought a Celestron Power Tank. AA batteries are a great option though. With a corrector plate, dewing over, in the cold, is a possible issue. Again, a Celestron Dew Shield, prevents this. There are electric ones around, but a basic shround has served me well enough with a frosty air. In short you could end up buying many "extras", which are not required. I bought a focal reducer for brighter, wider angled view (Creating effectictive telescope ratio to F6.3 compared to C8 F10, as bought - is easy to screw on/off at the eyepiece holder). Do you need this ? I did for some things, but could have survived without. Decide what you need to add, and don't go mad for "power/magnification". 50x Magnification for every Inch of scope is great, before the loss of resolution starts. I found Jupiter's Red Spot (more light brown at the moment), at 150x. Yes, go higher if image clear and stable. However, know the difference between a clear sky, and good "seeing", when the stars have very little "twinkle". The atmosphere can be be deceptive from day/night. Avoid being disappointed, if a clear view is so different from one night to the next. I do not do astrophotography, Very expensive hobby. Visual is best for me. In a "captured image", the Brighter stars are Bigger. though they are not. In the eyepiece you always get that "needle-point" image, just more intense when brighter. Stunning vistas. Even Barnard's star, was amazing. Tiny faint needle-point star field, with an obvious faint red dwarf. I would not have found this, with any ease, without the GOTO handset where you can enter the celestial co-ordinates (RA-DEC) of any object (the menu options in your manual describing the handset controls - indeed always read your manuals - even though not "trendy" !) I needed that facility to "GOTO" for a few comets too, their constantly moving position, can be found online, each day. However below, for fun, to show what you can have a go at/for, with a mobile phoneholder on the eyepiece, is a limited view of Venus at Crescent phase (minor wobble), and a moon shot. Lastly, Alignment is very easy ! "2 star", if you know the Star Names, or "3 star", for Any Bright objects, but you must be accurate with location, and local time. To note, give a good spread, in compass angle (azimuth), of targets, whichever mode of alignment. Keep it simple, and do as much as you feel happy with, the 25mm eyepiece is fine. AA batteries are fine, don't spend a fortune with add-ons. Grow With the scope and what you want from it. A fantastic telescope. Have fun looking up !!! P.S. I had to add some lovely images of M42. The Great Nebula of Orion. As mentioned above, sometimes it is the night (seeing) that picks Us ! I love the visual of M42 in my 25mm eyepiece. If you Google "Messier 42 in a telescope eyepiece", you shall see images, drawn on paper (sketches), of huge flowing arms of gas. It is stunning in reality ! I could not take my eyes of it, even though a frosty night. What you Cannot See in low light is the colour ! I thought to put my phone over the eyepiece, with my phone holder, with some setting changes (mid-range Samsung, selecting:- Camera/More/Pro - many adjustments available), and was blown away. And had to share with you all. One lovely "still", showing the trapezium quartet of stars in this stellar nursery. One I over-exposed, showing more of M42 ... and M43 popped out, top-right (adjoined), and then for fun, I took a video ! ( you may need to increase screen brightness for full effect). The shimmering/scintillation is only atmospherics, though sure that that would be more the case, nearer to it ! I did a video of Jupiter too, but only one video allowed here. All my shots in this review are my first attempts, with no processing. Just for fun and show a little of what a Celestron C8 can provide. Additional: Don't forget to use the "Sky Tour" button (also number 5), on the handset... for other delights ! I found that it can give me, some targets, very low on the horizon, so if not available, "arrow skip" them and carry on. Enjoy. I do.

This is a top notch telescope. Everything about it is quality and it is all heavy, solid stuff. The quality of the optics is superb. Surprisingly, it is very easy to put together. And then to use it, I thought it might be complicated. But it isn't. To start with, you can use the hand control like a joystick to just point it and use the finder scope! The spiret level was a breeze to use because if you extend the tripod on a level surface, it is bang on anyway. I like the useful max power of 500x and the impressive 8inch appature to gather the light. Use this with a computer connected CCD eyepiece and it is even more unbelievable good! Expensive but great quality, built to last and zip running costs. Oh, and you can get a power adapter for 12 pounds to save on the batteries too.

Only used a couple of times up to now lots of cloudy sky. When it was possible great view of the moon and Saturn. Takes some setting up and quite heavy to handle. Depending were you are can be used connected to electric or on batteries. Up to now very pleased with this purchase.

My wife has just started her astronomy adventure and we took quite a while choosing which telescope to buy. This one came out very high in many reviews and on many websites, and although I was a little reluctant to start off with a £600+ telescope, I wanted to make sure we could have a good experience so opted for this one. Firstly there's no doubt this is a quality telescope. The tripod itself would set you back a couple of hundred Im sure if you just wanted a good one for professional level photography or a replacement. Perhaps a pro photographer would disagree but without doubt it's a strong and sturdy set up. The tripod also comes with an equatorial alignment wedge. Now at this stage I don't know very much about what that is, but on reading many other reviews related to the other Nexstar SE series telescopes, it's clear that the others don't appear to have that option oddly. (Im sure someone will correct me if Im wrong). But at least it is there as and when you need it. The telescope itself is fairly impressive, particularly if you are not accustomed to telescopes as a rule. It comes with the basics you need to get going (also bought a lens & filter kit to compliment further). There are a number of tutorial videos for this telescope available online to assist you in setting it up and to be honest we found it quite a doddle to get the whole thing erected. Using the GoTo computer attachment for the alignment process was another experience however. I quickly realised that the software needed to be updated as the alignment process did ask me for global co-ordinates. I know these are easily obtained from most smartphones, but I had noticed on a couple of aforementioned tutorial videos that this wasn't requested by the handset, instead simply asking you to select your country and city. So the first issue in updating the software was of course connecting it to your PC. Trouble is it comes with an RS-232 (serial adapter) and not a USB. Who uses those anymore? This prompted me to think: how long as this product been around? I haven't used a serial adapter since I last owned a dial-up modem over 10 years ago. So I purchased a separate adapter and after a bit of fiddling about with serial port issues, finally managed to update the software. It took us a couple of frustrating evenings getting the telescope aligned properly, but this was of course due to our inexperience and the required learning curve, but was eventually rewarded with amazing views of the Moon, Jupiter & Saturn on the same evening. (if you do buy this I advise you to get a 2x Barlow lens as well. It really makes a huge difference when coupled with the 25mm Plossl lens that comes with the telescope as standard. More experienced stargazers will no doubt offer better advice but I at least discovered that was the case very quickly). Once you get the hang of the alignment process you're off. The GoTo computer and auto alignment motor does all the hard work from there. Overall I think this is a great telescope, and especially for beginners. The price might make some people think twice for a first scope, however there are a number of other viable options if you take your time and some advice from experienced stargazers. So far I'm very happy. I would have given this the full five stars had it come with a USB connection option.

Hola a todos, recibí el telescopio vendido por Amazon ,en muy buen estado, como el cuidado que han tenido de traerlo de reino Unido sin arañazos y nada que se suele encontrar en un pedido de tantos km en tan perfectas condiciones. E leído las reseñas de muchos compradores como yo, y tenía mis dudas ,pero con la confianza de devolución en caso de venir mal,pues me decidí a comprarlo y muy contento con el producto,calidad celestron!!! Básicamente viene como si lo compraras en la misma tienda celestron ( bien colimado)y si, viene con 1 ocular pero no se acaba el mundo hay muchas variedades de oculares y estos son caretes , pero es como todo en esta vida,se paga la calidad si vas a darle 1 uso frecuente,si no, hay más variedades de fabricantes. El telescopio de calidad ,la montura es perfecta para este tubo y la goto funciona perfectamente y si le sumas el módulo WiFi, mejor que mejor. Todo correcto y quien tenga duda,que no se lo piense.

This was originally bought for a ground based study of satellite antenna and terrestrial microwave physical interference project. I used it to find visible obstructions like buildings, trees, etc following the satellite arc and line-of-site communications at a proposed telecommunications sight. It is quite powerful. For instance, at a 4km distance, it could barely show a single window of a high rise condominium building in is field of view. Since then, it has been used for enjoyment. Looking at the moon, stars, etc. And I have bought many other accessories, lenses, etc for this new hobby. As a star gazer, you might want a more powerful scope, but it has been fun to start with. I bought a camera lens adapter for my digital SLR and have taken some amazing pictures with it. Talk about a telefoto lens! I still struggle with the automatic tracking feature. I guess I need to learn a little bit more about the stars to get it working properly.

The Amazon price was amazing and I'm not surprised it went up by almost $900, a day or two after I bought it. Delivery was quick in the US and slowed up a bit in Australia, but that's to be expected. We're still using camel trains to transport goods and most communication is done between two tin cans with a few hundred kilometres of string between them. The telescope was well packaged and took about 15 minutes to put together. One of the retaining screws for the Star Diagonal is missing but I'm pretty sure I can find something that will fit. I have only had a chance to test it terrestrially because of rain at night but I'm sure it will be fine. If Celestron and almost every other corporation on the planet didn't gouge Australians so badly on price I'd buy locally but it looks like Amazon is going to get more of my business.

Very useful

This is my second scope. The first was a Bushnell 4.5 inch reflector of disputable quality. The mirror was good, but I had to replace the flimzy tripod and get better eyepieces to even attempt to see anything clearly. This telescope is superior a hundred fold . The image of jupiter, for instance, is crisp and clear with the included 25mm eyepiece, Seeing hasn't been very good here, in Quebec City, these last few days, but I was able to observe the king of planets with a 10mm eyepiece and enjoy details impossible to discern with my old reflector. Allignement of the go to is relatively simple. The hand controller has a red backlight to preserve night vision. However, with the backlight on during allignement, the scrolling of instructions on the hand controller display is unreadable. Tracking is good, but I have noticed that occasionaly, the scope seems to loose track of the object, which makes it necessary to use the hand controller to bring things back on track. One of the reasons I purchased this scope was because it can be easily transported and assembled. The tube need not be removed from the mount. It can be rotated vertically to align with the mount arm into a neat compact package easily storable in my OTA bag. The tripod is also compact and light. Contrary to other comments, I find the tripod and mount well built and sturdy enough for the nexstar. A question of opinion, I suppose. I purchased the 18774 power tank with this scope, which I think is essential. The tracking motor will eat through the required AA batteries in no time. I also burchased the AC adapter. There is only one 25mm eyepiece included with the scope. The purchase of a few more of different magnification, a barlow and a few filters such as a lunar filter is a good idea. However, the nexstar is highly usable with the included accessory. There are many resources on the web which are helpful in the use of this SCT. Michael Swanson's Nexstar site, for one, has a lot of good info, although some of it seems outdated. Youtube is also a good source of valuable information. Included in the box: Scope and tripod (obviously) , tripod accessory tray, level for the tripod, 25mm eyepiece, 1.25 inch Star diagonal, Starpointer finderscope, The Sky Level 1 Astronomy Software, NexRemote telescope control software, RS232 Cable (you'll need an RS232 to USB adapter for newer computers) The good: Crisp image Easy assembly Easily transportable and storable Sturdy enough tripod Easy alignement with the hand controller The Bad: Scrolling text on the hand controller is unreadable when backlight is on. Tracking sometimes lost. To conclude, I have so far no regrets with my purchase. And although I have only a few hours of observations with the scope, I am quite satisfied. With mars and saturn soon to be in opposition, I believe the next few weeks will bring loads of astronomical fun. ***After a couple months of use, I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience with this scope. I had mentionned in my initial review that the scrolling text on the hand controller (HC) was unreadable at night, with the red backlight on. As I navigated through the numerous menus on the HC, I realized that I could set the speed of the scrolling, which pretty well solved that problem. So scratch that from the "Bad". The gears in this scope produce some backlash. This problem is well documented on the web and must be taken into consideration when attempting to do a proper star alignement and expect the scope to center on planets. Without some ajustements in the settings of the HC, planets will never align properly in your eye piece once the star alignement has been performed. I've found some very helpful astronomy forums with valuable info regarding different settings to minimize the impact of this backlash. I've added a spotting scope which makes the optical tube back heavy. I had no idea that this could have an impact on the the alignement, but it does. Call that a newb's mistake, I suppose . All in all, my experience with this telescopes has greatly improved with the knowledge collected on the web. So, the second point on my "bad" list still applies, but it can be remedied. My allignements are still not perfect. I still have to test some settings, but I'm getting very close. It's only a matter of time. But all this does not minimize the fact that this great telescope has enabled me to observe the marvels of our solar system and beyond with a clarity that truly amazes me. It's easy to set up, light and transportable. A great buy for a beginner like myself, and certainly for more experienced amateur astronomers. And worthy of its fifth star. (PS. The celestron GPS for this scope is a very helpful addition, by the way.) Celestron 93969 SkySync GPS Accessory