Celestron Nexstar 6SE - Warning photos

[GordonCopestake]

Well after much soul searching (and wallet checking) I finally made a decision on purchasing a new telescope. I was dead set on the HEQ5 Pro with a C8 OTA, but finally decided against this due to portability issues (and lack of funds!).

That left a fork mount. The CPC800 seemed favourite but I just can’t justify the near £2000 price tag. The alternative was the 8SE however I had some concerns about the mount stability and portability so in the end I am the proud owner of a brand new Celestron 6SE.

My thinking is that this can be my main ‘scope at the moment and will make a nice grab and go ‘scope to compliment something larger later on. Anyway, it’s not ideal but it’s pretty close to what I wanted and over all I’m pretty happy.

I ordered the ‘scope on Sunday from Steve at First Light Optics and I got my grubby hands on the goods on Tuesday. Fantastic service, especially when I got the ‘scope at such a good price! Thanks Steve! I can’t recommend FLO enough for great service and excellent prices.

The ‘scope came in a single large box weighing 10kg. Straight away this gives you some idea how portable this ‘scope is.

Unpacking took no time at all and setup took about 2 minutes. The OTA came already attached to the fork arm and the only assembly needed was to attach the fork arm to the tripod.

After assembling the ‘scope the first thing that I noticed was that there was a problem with the hand controller. The rubber/plastic sheet the buttons are formed from wasn’t properly seated in the plastic case:

Something like this should have been spotted in Celestron quality control but it wasn’t much of a problem to snap the hand controller open and reseat the button “sheet”.

Lifting the whole setup is a breeze and I don’t think there is a need to separate the fork/OTA/tripod for transport, at least not from my shed to observing location in my garden.

The back of the OTA is very similar to the C8 although I’m not too impressed with the focus knob being positioned directly beneath the visual back (due to the positioning of the dovetail rail). I think this would have been better placed 45 degrees to the lower right, but it’s only a small thing. I may even look at moving the dovetail rail if it gets on my nerves too much.

The lens cap as can be seen is a single piece of plastic and fits well. It’s a pain though not having a central handle like on the older SCT models. Not having this central handle means theres much more chance of touching the corrector plate. I may attach a handle at some point in the future, perhaps just drill a hole in the middle of the cover and attach a kitchen draw knob.

Another niggle is that on the tripod there isn’t QUITE enough thread on the spreader plate bolt to loosen the spreader without the knob coming completely off the thread if that makes sense. This means that in order to collapse the tripod you have to remove the knob completely drop the spreader, rotate it and then reattach the knob. It would have been MUCH easier if they had made the bolt half an inch longer, this would have meant the bolt didn’t need to be removed, just loosened. Hey ho, it's a small thing and another niggle I can live with.

The SE series has the ability to be ran from AA batteries however this isn't really recommended as the motors REALLY suck these things dry. I use a 240v mains supply adapter when at home and a power tank when away from home. This means that there is no chance of the batteries running out in the middle of a session. (another!) niggle though is that I had forgotten to "split the pin" on the power socket. It seems that ALL 'scopes that use the same power socket need the central pin to be split slightly to stop the power plug from falling out mid-slew. Irritating, but easily fixed.

Next to the battery compartment is the 2 ports available on the SE. One is an AUX port for a GPS module and the other is a standard ST4 autoguide port. Although the SE isn't really designed for imaging i'll be attempting some widefield DSLR shots when I get the chance.

One of the main draws to me for the SE series is the ability to remove the OTA from the fork arm. The SE uses a (nearly) standard vixen dovetail system and this means that it's easy to attach a small APO refractor to the mount for a wider field of view. This is something i'll look into as it's nice to have the best of both worlds.

Removed the OTA looks very small! I guess it's a similar size to the Synta 150 Mak. Weight wise it's not that much lighter than a C8, but the added stability the lighter OTA gives does seem to count. When attached to the fork arm at 300x a sharp rap to the OTA settled in less than a second. A rap to the tripod settled in less than half a second. I'm very pleased as the stability was one of my main concerns with this single fork arm setup.

I actually managed to get a first light on the same day I recieved the 'scope, a first i think! I put the 'scope out to cool at about 8:30pm and came back at 9:30pm to see if I could get it aligned. The hand controller is familiar to me having owned Celestron GT/SLT/CG5 telescopes before. I hit SkyAlign and entered my location and time. I then slewed the 'scope to Venus (nice and bright low in the west), Capella directly above Venus and Saturn (I was keen to see the performance on Saturn). Skyalign sat thinking for a while and then unceremoniously said "Alignment Failed". Hmmmmm odd. I tried again with Procyon, Capella and Regulus...... waited...... Alignment failed. Grrrrrrrrr, iritating! 3rd time lucky? Nope. Tried Capella, Regulus, Mizar......... Alignment failed. Well I'm sure it's most likely operator error, so I gave up on the alignment and just slewed manually back to Saturn. There he was nice and bright in the 25mm supplied e-lux eyepiece. Rings very crisp and despite the near 40% central obstruction the view was actually very pleasing and contrasty. I defocused to check collimation and saw that it was off a little (I have a set of Bob's knobs on order). It was close enough to not bother messing around though. I swapped to a nagler 3-6 zoom and at 6mm (250x)Saturn was glorious. Still bright and clear, although seeing wasn't good enough to see Cassini (and collimation didn't help). Just for fun I pushed to 4mm (375x) and Saturn was obviously mushy but still nice and bright. Even at 500x (3mm) Saturn was still clear and bright and overall i'm very pleased with the optics. I can imagine with a perfect collimation and a night of good seeing the images will be as good as anything I saw in my ED100. Which is suprising and probably says more about my eyes then about the quality of my equipment!

Anyway I spent about 30 mins viewing Saturn (manually slewing to keep up as tracking wasn't enabled without a GOTO alignment) and then gave up for one night. The best bit? Pick the whole kit and kaboodle up in one piece and carry it to the shed. Total time to pack up: less than 30 seconds.

I can see that once i've got the alignment sorted out the little 6SE will give me many nights of great viewing, and I highly recommend this 'scope to anyone who is a visual only observer and wants a lightweight portable GOTO 'scope with 6" or 8" of aperture.

I'll add more as I get to use the 'scope more.

[dogfish]

Hi Gordon,

That looks familiar Very nice review and good pics (I was too lazy to take/post any). Glad you like it. I wonder why your alignment failed? I've not had any problems since fixing the power source problem. You have a lot of experience with Skyalign by the sound of it so would know about all the usual suspects (day/date thing round the wrong ahem American way, daylight saving should be on, checking that the tripod is level, etc.).

The portability is great isn't it? I'll be interested to hear how you get on with attaching a refractor to the mount as my next major purchase is likely to be an ED80 OTA that I can use with the mount.

Hope you have lots of clear skies to sort out your alignment issue.

Cheers, Martin

[MartinB]

Glad you've got yourself sorted. I think that scope is going to give you some very pleasant surprises Gordon. I've heard very good reports about the stability of the single arm arrangement and your comments about this confirm that the mount is perfectly solid. It also comes as no surprise that your views compared well with an ED100. At the end of the day it is a 6" scope with good optics.

With a modded cam and a 3.3 reducer you could be knocking out some great images in no time!! Don't dismiss it as an imaging scope.

Don't know what the problem was with your alignment other than the usual suggestions about time zones, BST and all that. Although I have upgraded my NS8 handset I'm not familiar with the new alt az alignment routines. The original NS8 hand set had a quick align routine. You pointed it north and it guessed where everything was without having to align any stars. It was very approximate but it did get the scope tracking and was a great time saver for grab and go targets not needing goto.

Very interested to hear any updates you may have.

[FLO]

Good report Gordon

One of these is on my shopping list!

[geppetto]

Good honest report Gordon.. 8)

Lot's of hands on info usefull to folk contemplating buying one.

Have loads of fun with it mate

[GazOC]

Looks a great liitle scope Gordon. I wish they'd just enable the tracking as soon as the mount is switched on though, my EQ6 is the same, you have to align before the tracking comes on. I beleive this is 'fixed' in Skyscan v3 though as it is I just do a one star align with the clutches disengaged.

[Kai]

In Skyscan V3 you can selesct diferent tracking rates (Solar/Lunar/Sidereal) without having to align.

THe scope looks nice Gordon,have Celestron cured the wobbly leg problem (plastic lugs ?)

[GordonCopestake]

The tripod is solid metal, no plastic at all

[Rob]

The only issue I had with Skyalign was the DST setting. After that is was around 90% correct.

[Hugh]

Hi Gordon,

Glad you're enjoying the scope. I've had mine about 3 weeks now and out of 20 or so aligns, had only 3 failures. Adding my Long / lat as a custom site seems to make things easier (Teaching granny to suck eggs here I expect, so don't mind me...)

Yesterday I aligned on Venus as it was still fairly light (about 19.30) using "Solar System align", this was enough to allow a goto to Saturn - and it wasn't even dark yet! Not very bright but quite clear... Not bad at all when it got dark, clearly saw cassini division!

One observation - the focus knob introduces some momentary vibration when used with my (new) TV 11mm plossl , so I'm looking at ideas/suggestions to dampen it. (Was thinking along the lines of a foam "sleeve" or some such). Any and all ideas gratefully received

Otherwise, I too am very pleased with my purchase, even got a nice view of M82 last night, not very bright but quite discernable.

Now I want a powertank, a barlow and on and on......

Clear skies

Hugh

[GazOC]

A clothes peg on the focuser allows vibration free movement.

[Whippy]

Quality review Gordon, picturetastic!

[Redregie]

Well that's the last nail in the coffin for me...

Another great review of a 6SE

Right then where's that Mastercard, Birthday's come early old man....

Cheers

S.

[russ]

Gaz, you don't have to align to enable tracking. Just Esc from the front screen alignment routine and then dip into either the Utilities/setup (can't remember) menu and choose tracking - sidereal. Away it goes without any alignment. Perhaps V3 allows this without dipping into the menus.

Gordon, looks very familiar. I had the NS4 and it was a nice little setup. The fork and tripod was far more robust compared to the to the SLT series. I can't see it in your pics but the NS4 tripod had a built-in Polar Wedge for EQ tracking.

Russ

[ElijahB]

That was a great review... pictures too

I too was put off a bit at the cost of the CPC 800 new... so I scoured the net an picked one up second hand.... in tip top condition too. The only niggle I have is with the power connector with seems a bit loose (sometimes the power goes off when slewing from one target to another... not often but it does happen). I'm wondering if it has the same problem you mentioned. Will take a look tonight.

It seems like you have some nice EP's (Naglers, etc).... this will be amounst my next purchases, along with a wedge and a decent Barlow and an iluminated EP for alignment and a ... and a ... and a .... :roll:

Enjoy the new puchase.... I know I'm enjoying mine.

[GazOC]

Thanks for the tip Russ, it's certainly better than the way I've been doing it I read somewhere (can't remember) that v3 enables tracking as soon as its switched on.

[Hugh]

Thanks for the clothes peg tip GazOC - I'll be trying that later...

Hugh

[GazOC]

Thanks for the clothes peg tip GazOC - I'll be trying that later...

Hugh

Fine focussing on a budget....

[GordonCopestake]

Rus, only the 4 and 5SE have the built in wedge, the 6 and 8 come with a beefier tripod instead (but no wedge)

Vibration free focusing can be had with a motor focuser, but thats more cash. The peg solution is a good one, although it might catch on the visual back.

I'm 100% sure the alignment problems are operator error, too many nights with crying babies makes your IQ drop considerably i've found!

[GazOC]

Vibration free focusing can be had with a motor focuser, but thats more cash. The peg solution is a good one, although it might catch on the visual back.

Yep it does, you need to manually get "there or there abouts" and then attach the peg.

[Hugh]

Tried the clothes peg trick, works a treat! As you say Gordon, you need to be close otherwise it will snag the back. I've noticed that the focussing is quite tight, especially with my 11mm ep, so this will help lots.

Just need to find a Televue peg now........

[GazOC]

Just need to find a Televue peg now........

I've got one for sale for £40, but the name has worn off.....

[Kai]

I can do you a GSO peg for £20 !!

[GordonCopestake]

I've got a Synta one for a tenner including postage and packing! I have a whole pack at hand somewhere....

[Hugh]

Thought I might get some offers - you're all heart guys !