Celestron NexStar 8 SE Telescope
by Celestron
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List Price: Our Price: $1,199.00 You Save: $862.59 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $1,149.00 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Celestron NexStar 8 SE Telescope
Customer Review: Fantastic Go-To Telescope
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently upgraded to the Celestron Nexstar 8 SE. I had the Nexstar 4 GT before it. I have to say that the Nexstar line has come a long way in 4 years. The hand controller now has a larger database of objects that the scope will go to, and more alignment methods have been added. With SkyAlign, you can have the scope aligned in no time. I also like the fact that the hand controller and motor controllers are firmware upgradable now. This scope's go-to capabilities are fantastic. Once I used SkyAlign to set it up, I was finding nebulas and galaxies that I had never seen before. 8 "AA" batteries do not last long in this scope, so if you plan to use it for hours at a time, I would suggest that you purchase the AC Adapter, Car Adapter, or Power Tank to go with it. Anyway, the Nexstar 8 SE is a super scope. I love it!Customer Review: Awesome telescope
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this telescope last year because Celestron was having a huge rebate. They tend to give a 200 dollars off rebate every 1/2 year. Since then, I've added a light pollution filter and a heater to it, along with a Denkmeier Power Switch. The quality of this telescope is top notch, and I've been able to hook up my laptop to it for control. I use a 12 volt, 2 amp power adapter when I'm outside in the garden. So far, from my suburban light polluted environment, I've seen over 60 Messier objects. The telescope is perfectly collimated. I highly recommend anyone looking for a computerized telescope to select this one.Customer Review: wonderful scope
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a beginner to astronomy and I find this is the perfect scope to begin and continue my adventure with. Its about as much telescope as you can have that is still be portable. It is solid and I can carry it out in one piece. Every time I take it out I learn more about astronomy. It is also an excellent platform to grow in the future with accessories, such as anti-vibration pads, upgraded finderscope, and a focal reducer. I am very pleased and would recommend it to anyone.Customer Review: Love the scope!
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a newbie to this field, I find this telescope surprisingly easy to use! Loving it so far. I took a few brilliant photos with it too!Customer Review: Good SCT/GoTo for the Price
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a casual backyard observer in an area of heavy light pollution (close in suburb) and I looked at a number of smaller and more primitive Go-To scopes before buying the 8SE. I also have a C-5, but found it is just not up to letting me find fainter objects in our dark gray sky. The manual contains many suggestions for improving Go-To accuracy and I am still working through them. But with the mount level, the location set to a city 10 miles away and the time set to with in a minute, the Sky align method works very well with a 25mm eyepiece. Even one star and two star alignments are close. Precision Go-To works very well. If your observing takes you back and forth across a wide area of sky, you can improve Go-To by replacing one of the alignment stars with whatever star or planet you are viewing now. Having a level scope is critical. The bubble level was lost in the unpacking so I use a 2' level or a line level and rotate the scope more than 180 degrees to check level in all directions.
Once an object is centered, tracking is excellent. Saturn stayed in view with a 10mm eyepiece for about 50 minutes with no adjustments; at that point I changed to a different target.
Optically the 8SE is very good. It easily splits some of the closer double stars. Collimation while not perfect is very good; so good that I continue to postpone adjusting it. At the 8SE's price point there are compromises; there is play in the drive and the tripod could be just a bit better. The focus mechanism is jumpy. The red dot finder is a pain to use with higher targets. I will replace it with a right angle finder or a laser finder.
Imperfect as the Go-To system is in some ways, it does not require a complex setup, and most important, allows me to quickly find objects eluded me using guess and point with my C-5.
I use an AC adapter with a 5.5mm x 2.1 plug rather than batteries. If the power connection is loose, gently spread the center pin in the power jack on the mount. Also check to ensure that you are using a x 2.1mm plug rather than the more common x 2.2mm.