What's the difference?

[KE400]

Hi

I've just been doing some research into these Celestron scopes and I'm a bit confused as to the difference.

CELESTRON 91036-XLT 11-inch OTA (CGE)

Celestron CPC 1100 GPS

Celestron Edge HD 11 OTA

Can someone explain the difference please, I'm assuming that the latter one is the latest model due to the increase in cost?

Thanks

[LMC]

Yes.

The first is the "old" 11" SCT tube assembly ONLY. So, depending from whom you buy, you will only get the actual telescope or telescope + finderscope. There would be no mount or diagonal. Fine if you have that stuff. It's a very good scope.

The second, CPC, is a fork mounted, go-to telescope on a (hefty) tripod. It is the same OTA as above. It's a very popular SCT and my mates had one for years. The go-to is pretty accurate, the optics are usually very good and being 11" , it grabs lots of photons. Its BIG though and needs a decent power supply.

The last is Celestron's version of the Meade 'ACF-Advanced Coma Free' design that eliminates coma (blurry , elongated stars at the edge). It also has a few features the C11 and CPC don't such as fan cooling and mirror-lock.

Its a fair bit more expensive than the C11 /CPC11 and unless you plan on doing a lot of astro-photography, probably not worth the extra cash. The visual difference is minimal, but the mirror lock could still be handy. AFAIK its not available in a fork mount.

Hope that's useful!

LMC

[KE400]

Very usefull indeed, thanks for the info!