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New 4SE owner - first proper scope!

mintimperial

By mintimperial
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mintimperial

mintimperial

Posted
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Hi all :)

I've just yesterday taken delivery of my Celestron Nexstar 4SE!

I've heard it's a small scope, but my original purchase over 10 years ago did not turn out well. I was bought a Tasco Luminova 112 which was in all ways awful. Sufficed to say, I never saw a thing bar the moon. So it basically got shelved.

I never lost interest in all things space. Always had a desire to see the things I read about with my own eyes.

More recently me and my partner visited the greek island of Rhodes, and thanks to a useful iPhone app, and an amazing view of the night sky from our balcony learned names of all the constellations, lots of stars, and it really opened my eyes to astronomy again.

Its my birthday this month so my present had to be a telescope..research took me to the 4SE. A goto feature was essential based on my previous attempt at astronomy!

Well, I'm happy to report ive finally managed to see Jupiter with its cloud bands and moons. Amazing. Spent lots of time looking at the moon and a couple of double stars, all using the supplied 25mm plossl eyepiece.

I've just ordered myself an 8mm TMB planetary? Hoping the views of Jupiter especially will be vastly improved.

Any hints or tips with regards to my 4SE?

For me today, the solar system just got a little smaller :)

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Ags

Ags

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Good EP choice - I have a 9mm TMB clone and it is my preferred EP to view Jupiter. For a wid field of view I bought a 24mm Baader Hyperion (second hand). It is such a handy scope, so light and excellent on planets. Because it has a small aperture, it is less affected by poor seeing conditions than the bigger scopes are.

My fave DSOs with the 4se are M13 and M57.

I am just discovering that the 4se mount is a good basis for modest widefield imaging using small camera lenses - I have got round stars after 150sec exposures using a 55mm lens. The only difficulty is accurate polar aligning - you have to guesstimate unfortunately. The mount is no good for imaging with a telescope - even with a small scope you can't get round stars reliably with 15sec exposures.

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mintimperial

mintimperial

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Thanks for the warm welcome guys! :)

My 8mm TMB Planetary II arrived today and Ive already gone out to have a quick nose at the moon which is quite clearly visible during the day. Obviously night viewing will be vastly superior, but I could already make out that this Eyepiece is very nice indeed.

I am excited at the prospect of seeing Jupiter again with a higher mag tonight!

Heres a pic I took last night using the 24mm that came with the scope, I took this in a very technical way: Pointing my iPhone camera down the eyepiece. :D It actually worked!

:)

post-33247-133877726335_thumb.jpg

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mintimperial

mintimperial

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Wheres a good place to start on the forum?...Had a great night last night, saw Jupiter, Andromeda Galaxy (smudge) Orion Nebula with the trapezium (awesome), Mizar and Alcor, and later on in the night saw Mars, with what Im sure was a polar cap...just a little bright spot to the upper right (left i suppose with the way the scope works) The sky wasn't as clear as the night before, a lot more moisture in the air, but some amazing views nonetheless.

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Mike Hackenbacker

Mike Hackenbacker

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greetings from me.i too own a nexstar4 and have had some sucess with it.the moon jupiter pliades orion,not got any picture of orion yet but have posted some of what i have done here and on youtube.its a good scope.the mrs got the 3 star align to work so it tracks good enough for me,heres to many hours good viewing from it

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