The tracking is easy to set up with 3-star alignment (we’ll look at that in more detail later) and the computer which controls it contains a database of 40,000 objects. Camera owners are very familiar with f/stops and know that “fast’ lenses will let a lot of light in, allowing shorter exposure times. Your first night as an 8SE owner will be so much more rewarding if you’ve got your power source sorted! The light then passes through a central hole in the main mirror and into the focuser at the bottom of the OTA. The Cherry Springs Star party is an annual astronomy event where night sky enthusiasts come together to appreciate the true beauty of an unspoiled night sky.

The Nexstar 8SE is packed full of advanced features that makes it compatible with all of the latest high-tech gadgets that you are currently using. The included eyepiece and red dot finder are useful accessories that allow you to start using the telescope right away.An update-capable hand controller, future-proof thanks to flash EPROM technology, can download the latest control software version via the Internet at any time. However, if you do want to get into astrophotography, then the tracking motor coupled to an alt-az mount has limitations. If there’s one thing about the house-arrest experience of 2020’s pandemic, it’s that it encourages you to take up new hobbies. When deciding if the 8SE is the best telescope for you, there are several key factors you need to consider.

Incidentally, the Cloudy Nights forums are filled with opinions stating that the 8SE is only good for visual astronomy and planetary imaging. A second arm attached at the other side would give a more robust mounting and, without it, you do see some minor vibration at the eyepiece when you touch the scope, such as when adjusting focus. The largest of the NexStar SE family with 78% more light gathering than a 6" model, the NexStar 8 SE will enable you to see deep into the Universe. The optics in the NexStar 8SE are incredibly well made and provide brilliant image clarity and detail.

The Schmidt-Cassegrain design provides a good all-round system suitable for both observing and astrophotography and with an enormous range of optional accessories available. If you take the time to read and watch these owner accounts, you will probably come away with the impression that we did. In the 1970s, the classic Celestron 8 brought the hobby of astronomy to the masses and established Celestron as the world’s premier telescope maker. I had better optics, since I’d upgraded everything to 2” Luminos, including the Barlowe in use here, but was still using a Canon T5i DSLR. The main difference is the location of the battery compartment and, therefore, the battery installation instructions.

I asked the AstroBackyard community on Facebook how they felt, and almost all of them had amazing things to say about this telescope.An altitude-azimuth mount can move in the left-right and up-down directions, but can’t rotate in the z-axis. The fully-assembled setup can easily be lifted up and moved across the yard, or brought back into your house or garage. We are using the very latest Zygo MX software to provide a more detailed report compared to other standard reports. Control your telescope using your iPhone or iPad with our SkyPortal WiFi Adapter, or add GPS functionality with SkySync.

This is key: even though I am limited to short timeframes for my exposures, there’s no limit to the number of exposures I can take, other than my time. Celestron’s signature orange-tube telescope combines advanced features and excellent optics in one easy-to-use system, the NexStar 6SE. You can use light pollution or ultra-high contrast filters, but these further eat into your exposure time because they block not only the bad light but also a little of the good light, so these work best with brighter objects such as the Orion Nebula and/or a focal reducer (although if the target’s color is right, such as the Dumbell Nebula, these have helped me with faint objects).It didn’t have much effect for visual astronomy, but for astrophotography it’s great at bringing out the reds in targets if you can manage the extra exposure time. The long focal length – over 2m – means that we get some big magnifications, as the table above shows. That’s exactly what I did in this picture, using a piggyback mount with my Canon T5i DSLR with a 200 mm lens. I realize guiding will be trickier with the AVX than a higher-payload scope such as the CGEM, but I just don’t think I’ll use my scope as often if I need to assemble it each time. The PV rating (Peak To Valley) is a measurement from the highest point (Peak) to the lowest point (Valley).