Celestron Nexstar Telescope

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Hi Spaceace..........Good to see another Central Coast Local.

If you bring the scope to Mangrove mountain next weekend ( weather permitting ) I am sure there will be some help on hand to help set your new scope up so you can start enjoying it ASAP.

By the way, the scope you have chosen, I think makes a great portable scope for easy set-up and easy tranportation. A great choice indeed.
It makes good sense to get a first scope that will get you out under the stars as often as possible.

I should be able to check the power requirement for you as well, to see if you can run it from a power tank type battery supply..

Cheers

Geoffro.

[Muddy Diver]

Hi Space ace

Welcome to IIS (although I've had a sabatical and have only just looked at the site for some time). It is a great resource full of people willing to help at any moment.

I have your scope and have found it user friendly and great fun. The 4" diameter opyics allow only so much detail to be viewed of brighter objects, I find (with my eye sight and in light polluted SW Sydney) that anything below mag 10 -11 is too dim for the little mak but planetary viewing Jup, Saturn and Mars is fine. Again not much detail but you will be impressed with Saturn.

I drive mine using the celestron power pack although any 12V pack from an auto store will do. I find this will run for longer than i wish to observe whereas the AA batteries willl be sucked dry in 1-2 hours max.

Although the optics are pretty steady in Maksutov Cassegrain designs, I found mine to be slightly out and minor collimation was required which gave much better results when imaging planets.

Its a great little starter scope, I take it camping and anywhere else when dark skies are guarunteed. Very quick to set up (10 mins if dismantled from the tripod) You wont be dissapointed. I would like to purchase something larger but would never consider divesting of the nexstar due to its portability factor.

Good luck with it. If you need any advice just shout and I'll offer whatever I can.

Here are a couple of links which you may find useful. I have an image album at http://tech.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/NexStar4

and at

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/nexstar/

This site is also extremely useful

http://www.nexstarsite.com/

Contact me if you run into trouble, happy to help

[spaceace]

Heya guys

Its been almost a year now that ive purchased the telescope and unfortunately due to numerous real life issues (work, new baby, rain etc) I havn't had a lot of use. I would be really keen to hook up with a group on the Central Coast (Australia) if someone could please provide some details of the group up there that would be greatly appreciated.