Cant make up my mind

[sabana]

The 6se is a jack of all trades. But master of none. Having said that if you only have one scope thats the one to get.

[x6gas]

I have a C6N-GT, so here goes...

On the plus side this is a nice little, fairly light scope that is easy to use. The CG-5 is an equitorial mount so you need to learn how to polar align and be comfortable that - even when you know what you are doing - it is going to take you 20-30 minutes to set up.

The 750mm focal length gives you a nice frame for fairly large DSOs like M42 (Orion Nebula), Horsehead Nebula, Rosette Nebula, Andromeda galaxy etc. It is also a 'fast scope (f/5) which is good for imaging and has a direct t-thread connection on the focuser which means you can attach a DSLR and get good focus.

The CG-5 has a guideport for autoguiding (e.g. with a seperate guidescope and guidecam) - sooner or later you are going to want to autoguide if you are DSO imaging so this is worth having.

On the downside you will get coma using a large format sensor like that in a DSLR. Coma correctors are pricey and I've not found one that works with my imaging gear and the 1.25" focuser on the C6N.

Good scope though and I'd recommend it.

BUT the scope you need for imaging faint DSOs is pretty much exactly the opposite to the one you need to image the planets. For DSOs you need a "fast" scope (low f-ratio ideally f/5 or less). For imaging the planets you need lots of magnification and that is best achived with a long focal length and a long focal length will tend to mean a higher f-ratio (f/10 is not uncommon); this type of scope provides too much magnifaction for DSOs, are more difficult to use for long exposures and because they are 'slow' scopes with high f-ratios they need even longer exposures than faster scopes too!

HTH (left this message unsent on my netbook screen so sorry if now out of date!)

Ian