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Old 07-09-2021, 09:49 AM
Thomas333 (Thomas)
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Best telescope

Good morning ! I currently have a Celestron 5SE but have saved and am able to get a Celestron 8SE. I am comfortable with the Celestron brand. Is there a big difference going to the 8SE (planets, moon, galaxies....simple things )and with a budget of $3,000 is the Celestron 8SE the best one ? Thank you.
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Old 07-09-2021, 05:13 PM
astro744
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Welcome. The 8” will gather 2.56x the light if the 5”, (not accounting for secondary size difference). Whilst brighter it is not a WOW! difference but is noticeable. Resolution to will be better, (seeing dependant). Planets will be brighter at the same magnification. The brighter galaxies will be obvious but the fainter ones still wisps of light. Nebula will be brighter but again not WOW brighter but of course this can be read as subjective.

Maximum field of view will be narrower due to the longer focal length and this is where SCTs in general are suitable more for medium to high power views and not low power wide fields. You will not fit the Pleiades in the field no matter what eyepiece you use.

Do you prefer SCTs over other types of telescopes and if so what feature do you prefer the most? SCTs are compact but powerful instruments but are expensive for the aperture. $3k is a lot for an 8” telescope but you are of course paying for computer control mount too and portability. However for exactly the same price at Bintel you can get a Skywatcher 12” GOTO Dobsonian telescope which will certainly give you a WOW difference with computer control also.

Being able to track an object certainly helps with observing as you can concentrate more on the target without constantly having to nudge the telescope. If you don’t want computer control you can get a 12” Dob for half the money and spend the rest on quality eyepieces. Note you can mount a Dob on what’s called an EQuatorial Platform but these are more of a niche market now. You don’t need a computer to track, only RA (Right Ascension) axis motor. Computer only gives you GOTO which some people cannot live without and others cannot live with.

Whatever you choose, enjoy!
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Old 07-09-2021, 09:45 PM
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Bobbyoutback
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Originally Posted by astro744 View Post
Welcome. The 8” will gather 2.56x the light if the 5”, (not accounting for secondary size difference). Whilst brighter it is not a WOW! difference but is noticeable. Resolution to will be better, (seeing dependant). Planets will be brighter at the same magnification. The brighter galaxies will be obvious but the fainter ones still wisps of light. Nebula will be brighter but again not WOW brighter but of course this can be read as subjective.

Maximum field of view will be narrower due to the longer focal length and this is where SCTs in general are suitable more for medium to high power views and not low power wide fields. You will not fit the Pleiades in the field no matter what eyepiece you use.

Do you prefer SCTs over other types of telescopes and if so what feature do you prefer the most? SCTs are compact but powerful instruments but are expensive for the aperture. $3k is a lot for an 8” telescope but you are of course paying for computer control mount too and portability. However for exactly the same price at Bintel you can get a Skywatcher 12” GOTO Dobsonian telescope which will certainly give you a WOW difference with computer control also.

Being able to track an object certainly helps with observing as you can concentrate more on the target without constantly having to nudge the telescope. If you don’t want computer control you can get a 12” Dob for half the money and spend the rest on quality eyepieces. Note you can mount a Dob on what’s called an EQuatorial Platform but these are more of a niche market now. You don’t need a computer to track, only RA (Right Ascension) axis motor. Computer only gives you GOTO which some people cannot live without and others cannot live with.

Whatever you choose, enjoy!
Top advice Astro !

When I was young I had an old 8" F/7 newt that was on a primitive home made pipe mount I'd made , I used a 6mm eyepiece housing with lenses removed to collimate .
Learnt from books where all the good stuff was & then star hopped .

Was a wonderful scope for many years .

Have Fun
Bobby
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Old 08-09-2021, 08:31 AM
m11 (Mel)
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Hi Thomas,

Astro has provided great advice.

I have a Celestron 6se and a Celestron CPC and I would recommend if you are sticking with SCTs to go the CPC series scopes. If you are not afraid they do come up time to time on iceinspace as they are pricey.

I would recommend as Astro has mentioned to get a 12inch goto dob for bang for buck and great views. You will need to collimate though each time for the dob as a caveat. You will also have a few $$$ to spend on some eyepieces as well.

As Bobby has mentioned researching and finding stuff is also half the fun and getting a kick out of locating objects.
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Old 08-09-2021, 07:45 PM
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Tulloch (Andrew)
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Personally, I hated manually looking for stuff, my life changed considerably for the better once I upgraded to a Goto scope. Since you already have a goto SCT, I think you will miss it.

The real question is, what do you want to look at? Is it just the planets and moon (and galaxies ?), are you looking at astrophotography as well as viewing through an eyepiece? If so, just the moon and planets? Galaxies? Nebulae?

The problem is that the "best" telescope for the planets is quite different to the "best" telescope for the DSOs. The 5SE you have now is good for the planets, the 8" will be better. An 11" is better again, a 14" is better than that, etc etc .

The SCT format on an alt/az mount (like you have now) is well capable for imaging the planets, but won't be optimal for imaging nebulae or galaxies, you need a faster scope on an equatorial platform.

If you have enough space, and don't mind the additional hassle of wheeling a large telescope around, then an alternative to the 8SE would be a 12" Goto Dob, which can be bought for $3000. (As astro744 already mentioned )
https://www.opticscentral.com.au/sky...telescope.html

You would get much better viewing and images of the planets, be able to see dimmer objects if you are in a darker site, but comes at the expense of portability and ease of use.

The real question is - what do you actually want to do?

Andrew
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Old 10-09-2021, 01:29 PM
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Eldest_Sibling (Alan)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas333 View Post
Good morning ! I currently have a Celestron 5SE but have saved and am able to get a Celestron 8SE. I am comfortable with the Celestron brand. Is there a big difference going to the 8SE (planets, moon, galaxies....simple things )and with a budget of $3,000 is the Celestron 8SE the best one ? Thank you.
If you're wanting an 8" Schmidt, the ideal would be to consider the "Evolution" version, not the "SE". The "SE" mount is fine for a C6, but it's really not supportive enough for a C8...

https://i.imgur.com/uvDLiVC.jpg

There is one size of mount for the 4SE and 5SE, but another slightly larger for the 6SE and 8SE, but as you can see the C8 overwhelms the "SE" mount. The mount simply isn't supportive enough. It's barely doable for visual, but if you want to dabble in taking photographs in future, the "Evolution" mount would be the better choice; or, the "AVX" version.
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Old 10-09-2021, 02:08 PM
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mura_gadi (Steve)
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Hello,

My experience with the GOTO Dob is its awesome for planets. They move very fast under magnification and tracking or hand controller is my preferred way to view the planets. For objects outside of the solar system not so much so, they are fairly easy to keep in view.

If you had a dedicated planet scope I would say you might not need goto on the Dob - setting circles/argo navis instead.

I looked at the specs for the 8" SE and its 5.4kg OTA, 5kg for the mount head and 4kg for the tripod, total weight 10.8kilo(14+kg). (I know but that's from Celestrons site). A light weight 12" Dob from ES is $3.2k new and weighs in at 20kilo for the base and mirror(+8kilo the rest), the SW 12" GOTO is 20kg base and 23kg OTA.

Glass gets very heavy pretty quickly. At this moment you have a scope you use a lot, try and hold onto that as a feature for the next one. The best scope is the one you use.

Can you make it to Brisbane for the second hand market?


Steve
The link below talks about what you can expect to see from entry level telescopes... from really cheap to 250mm newts.
The medium example is close to your telescope and gives a 10" newt as large not the 12" suggested here.
http://www.deepskywatch.com/Articles...telescope.html

Last edited by mura_gadi; 10-09-2021 at 02:40 PM.
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Old 10-09-2021, 05:04 PM
ausastronomer (John Bambury)
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Originally Posted by Tulloch View Post
Personally, I hated manually looking for stuff, my life changed considerably for the better once I upgraded to a Goto scope.
Andrew
That's sort of a subjective thing.

Older people who have been observing for a few decades (started in 1960's, 1970's or 1980's) never had the luxury of computers or GOTO. You basically had to learn the sky and how to find stuff. It is a many years exercise to become highly proficient; and with peoples modern day busy lives a lot of people just don't have that time. They need to maximise their time at the eyepiece. Computers, Digital Setting Circles and GOTO that are currently available save an enormous amount of time and allow people to observe a much greater number of targets in a given time. That is how many people choose to spend their available astronomy time and I can fully understand why they do that. The downside to that is that they only get to see the targets and don't learn the sky, the constellation layouts and how to find stuff. Personally I've gone full circle. All 3 of my scopes have Argo Navis and Servocat on them. However, I probably only use the Servocat 15% to 20% of the time and use the Argo Navis about 90% of the time. When observing DSO's I actually prefer to have the Servocat Off as I can push the scope around manually to center whatever part of the target I want to focus on, or to scan the surrounding star fields. Whenever I do outreach with 3RF, which was quite often pre COVID, I don't use the Servocat or the Argo Navis. I can find and center a large number of showpiece targets, which is what people want to see at outreach, a lot faster from memory and pushing the scope straight there, than you can do with tracking and GOTO, particularly if you want to go from one side of the sky to the other. It can also depend on the sky conditions you observe under. It's a lot easier to manually find targets under dark skies, than it is under urban / rural skies.

GOTO and Tracking are certainly very nice to have and can save some people a lot of time and maximise the targets they observe in their available time. They aren't an absolute necessity and certainly don't teach you much in regard to how to find stuff. That all having been said I wouldn't have a scope without them these days, for the times I do want to use them.

Cheers
John B
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