NexStar 8SE Question

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Anyone with any personal experience have anything good, bad or indifferent to say about this scope?
The 5 & 6 have good reviews esp. their go-to capabilities.
They're on sale in Canada at the moment for AU$1550!
As opposed to $3300 locally
Even assuming a couple of hundred dollars postage +import duty+GST, you'd still be WAY ahead.
Like a 12" dob ahead.
Worth it?

[Gallifreyboy]

Hi Peter,
I can see where the proceeds of your eyepiece sale is heading .
I have had a 6SE and found it a very nice scope, as you say ,go to very good, very light and transportable and visually much better than the same aperture skywatcher equivalent. It is no good for imaging and if you have any inclination in this area you could use the scope but would need a better mount.

Peter

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

The EP proceeds are going toward fencing for sheep!(Tax deductable)
Imaging isn't an option. The conversation goes like this:
Me: Darling, I want to spend tens of thousands of dollars we could use on the farm to take pictures of fuzzy things that any number of people can do ten times better than me. OK with you?
Wife: Get Knotted! When are you going to finish the pump shed you bone-idle twatt!
No. Strictly visual for moi.
I want to start a club here in South Gippy and a GoTo is an excellent draw for the gen z's as anything with buttons seems to attract them

[scarper (Mart)]

Originally Posted by Waxing_Gibbous

Anyone with any personal experience have anything good, bad or indifferent to say about this scope?
The 5 & 6 have good reviews esp. their go-to capabilities.
They're on sale in Canada at the moment for AU$1550!
As opposed to $3300 locally
Even assuming a couple of hundred dollars postage +import duty+GST, you'd still be WAY ahead.
Like a 12" dob ahead.
Worth it?

Peter i have an 8SE and found the goto on the alt az mount pretty damn good if you get the mount roughly south aligned. I always had no difficulty getting little fuzzy bits in the eye piece view.
As previously said the mount would be no good for imaging, but as you (by u I mean your missus) wont be imaging then that wont be a problem.
Decent eyepieces would also make this a better scope.

from me. Especially if you can get it from canada for that price.

Mart

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Thanks Scarper. Very useful!

[netwolf]

Optcorp have a special on at the moment for 1199. Shipping via UPS comes out to about 394USD. Check out the thread i have going on alternative import methods. If you want to buy local the best price is from Andrews.

[andrew2008]

Andrews Communications sell them for $2799 which is the cheapest price in AUS by about $500 usually. York Optical also have sale on them at the moment for about the same which i think ends this month.

[Matty P (Matt)]

I used to have an 8SE and absolutely loved it. The Alt-Az mount was very good with finding objects and the views through the 8" was a good match. It was very easy to use and only took me one night out with it to get my bearings.

However, the best thing about the setup was the ability to remove the OTA off the mount allowing you to put it on a GEM later on. If you ever wanted to get into astrophotography.

Which was exactly what I did.

[Moon (James)]

However, the best thing about the setup was the ability to remove the OTA off the mount allowing you to put it on a GEM later on. If you ever wanted to get into astrophotography.

Which was exactly what I did.

Me too.

Got mine from the USA back when the AUD was even higher than it is today. If you can get it for a good price, then yes it's a goer, especially for a beginner. The only issue with importing it yourself is the warrantee.

Here is a picture of mine set up on the terrace in our old place in Switzerland overlooking the Alps....
http://deepspaceplace.com/show.php?id=gear8se

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Thanks all, but the shop in Canada out'n'out refused to send one!
Apparently Australia, India & Europe are "no-go" zones for US / Canadian vendors unless you want to loose your authorised supplier status.
The ACCC really should look into the pricing.

[PCH (Paul)]

Peter, I'm fairly sure Meade have the same rules for distribution outside the US. What some people have done to avoid this rule is to have the product shipped to a US (or in your case, Canadian) address. Of course the address you provide them is your freight forwarding company's address, and naturally they then send it on to you. Problem solvered

But of course, you have to find a Canadian or US forwarding company. I'd be fairly sure some people right here on IIS could help there, - if you were to ask.

Cheers,

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by PCH

But of course, you have to find a Canadian or US forwarding company. I'd be fairly sure some people right here on IIS could help there, - if you were to ask.

Cheers,

See Fahims thread as mentioned above

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Ta again.
I have no problem finding a freight-forwarder. A high-school freind in Vancouver runs a shipping company. It just P's me off that we have to put up with this nonsense. Its not just Celestron. Canon and Nikon both over-charge to a ridiculous extent. Makita tools are 3 times the price they are in the 'States. Ultimately, the rest of us seem happy to subsidise the US, where consumers are more price concsious and simply refuse to purchase something that's too expensive, regardless of how much they want it. Alas, we just buy what they sell us at whatever price.they ask.
Strike! Strike! Strike! :-)

[stephenb (Stephen)]

That's correct. Celestron and Meade dealers in the US will not ship to Oz. I do recall a dealer on the East Coast of the US (cannot remember their name) who also trade on eBay. They have been known to ship to Oz.

Remember it is not the fault of the local dealer. These are rules that Celeston and Meade put in place at their end to "protect" the local dealer. If this was not in place, local dealer wouldn't exist, and then where would we be? No support or warranty servicing.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Originally Posted by glenluceskies

That's correct. Celestron and Meade dealers in the US will not ship to Oz. I do recall a dealer on the East Coast of the US (cannot remember their name) who also trade on eBay. They have been known to ship to Oz.

Remember it is not the fault of the local dealer. These are rules that Celeston and Meade put in place at their end to "protect" the local dealer. If this was not in place, local dealer wouldn't exist, and then where would we be? No support or warranty servicing.

No. its not the fault of the dealer but: neither company cares what is charged the punter as long as they get their asking price. Canada and Australia are almost exactly the same in terms of customer base, exchange rate, warranty claims etc etc..
In short, the after market claims on either are going to be roughly the same.
It'll cost no less to import, sell and service the scopes there as here.
Yet they are 1/2 the price.
Canada has extremeley strict anti-trust (or anti price-fixing) laws, which are actually enforced, as opposed to our local muppets who don't care if it doesn't get a headline.

[mjeremy (Mike)]

Just a few comments about the 8SE - Since I own one

The Alignment technique is real easy to use - even my 15 year old Son who knows Zip about Astronomy managed to align it - Since all you do is pick bright things in the sky and let the controller work out what they are - although he reckons the hand controller interface needs updating to look like an IPhone!

Even if your very casual about the alignment (ie the target alignment stars are somewhere near the middle of a 25mm EP) then the trackings seems good. If you Synch the object it improves - although not remembering to switch of the synch can cause some fairly annoying pointing issues when slewing to other objects.

If your going to image Solar System stuff then it's fine -as long as your not a perfectionist and your happy with a cheap CCD/Webcam style solution - DSOs just don't cut it and I suspect a better mount is required.

I can easily picK the OTA and Tripod up and carry it back into the Garage even after a few Beers! so portability is not an issue.

If your intending to show the Universe to Gen Ys then this is a good scope to do it - although make sure you get stress that reading SMS messages in the middle of a session is likely to stuff up their night sight!!!

As a complete change of subject - the 15 year old plays Ice Hockey and none of the major Ice hockey suppliers (Nike, Bauer, Mission etc) will export to Australia you have to use a local dealer and they are 200-300% more expensive than their US/Canadian counterparts. So it seems to be something of a pattern when it comes to 'minority' interests buying US manufactured equipment.

Regards

Mike

[netwolf]

Mike,

Just one diffrence the Nexstar SE is wholy manufactured in China. So it would cost them more or less the same to send it to Canada or Australia. That leaves only the distributor to set the price above the same baseline. Yet the diffrence between Canada and Australia is like we are on a maroned island.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Agree, Fahim. However, this is an old argument and is brought up with monotonous regularity, as you know, and it often distracts form the main questions raised. I think one aspect that everyone concurs on is, in the end if you don't like the local prices, work out someway you can import from overseas, or complain directly to the companies (which I doubt almost no one does anyway). Or buy local and accept the prices, their customer service and support. I do the latter. I am happy to pay the prices and grateful of the ongoing support I receive from my local store. The prices keeps 2-3 staff on the books for the customer and provides an excellent shopfront.

Peter, I think you will be very happy with a NexStar 8SE. They have lots of good reports and even more support from users on Cloudy Nights.

My only recommendation would be not to by them from an Aust. Geo store, but rather from a dedicated telescope store.

good luck.

[Don Pensack]

Originally Posted by Waxing_Gibbous

Anyone with any personal experience have anything good, bad or indifferent to say about this scope?
The 5 & 6 have good reviews esp. their go-to capabilities.
They're on sale in Canada at the moment for AU$1550!
As opposed to $3300 locally
Even assuming a couple of hundred dollars postage +import duty+GST, you'd still be WAY ahead.
Like a 12" dob ahead.
Worth it?

1) Celestron will not honor a warranty on a scope purchased from Canada.
You'd have to send it back to Canada at your expense to get a warranty repair made.
Plus, freight, duty, brokerage fees and local taxes may cut the savings considerably. This scope is oversized and travels as if it were 3 times as heavy, freight-wise.
I recommend befriending an Australian dealer and getting it there. You can probably get a discount on accessories, too.
2) This scope is very flexible, and has a long shimmy period. Anti-vibration pads help, but I recommend the C8-S GT Advanced Series instead. It's very stable and costs just a little more.
Plus, it has photographic capabilities, which the C8SE does not.