CONTEMPLATING Celestron Nexstar 4 SE

[JakePerthWA]

hey everyone,

i am contemplating buying the
Celestron Nexstar 4 SE Computerised Cassegrain Telescope as my first serious telescope.

any recomendations or advice????:)

[jakob]

I started out in a similar way, with a Meade ETX105.
Its great for planetary viewing and webcam imaging and learning what's up there.

But it soon became obvious that 100 mm does not catch much light.:sadeyes:

Having learned a bit of the Sky, I then switched to a Dob to chase the things which only look like a bit of fluff through the ETX.:eyepop:

Good luck!
J.

[barx1963]

Hi Jake
As Jakob said, with these scopes you are swapping aperture for the convenience of a go to. 4 inches these days is a really small scope and unless you have quite dark skies, and I note you are in Perth, small aperture will severely limit what you can observe with these.
For visual observing, aperture makes a lot of difference. Dobs have the advantage that aperture can be gained very cheaply.

Malcolm

[raymo]

If you can find the dollars, the 6SE would be significantly better; but
better still, If you're set on the SE range of scopes, would be to look
for a used 8SE. They come up at good prices from time to time.
raymo

[Stardrifter_WA]

Ditto Malcolm, I wouldn't go near it, way too small for a cassegrain.

Frankly, I think you would be much better off with an *" Skywatcher with GOTO, it isn't that much more.

Jake, how much do you want to spend?

Cheers Pete

[Renato1]

It depends how into the hobby you are going to go. A 4" telescope is pretty good for looking at the brighter Deep Sky objects - like those listed in Bright Star Atlas.

So while the telescope may have a data base of 40,000 objects, it's only really good for viewing the many hundreds in that atlas. Which isn't a bad thing - I still own and use several 4" telescopes. Though I use larger aperture a lot of the time.

Regards,
Renato