Celestron C6-RGT

[AstroMum]

Just been taking a look at this as the 'scope I want is out of stock at the moment. Can't find a lot of info about it but it looks quite impressive.

Anyone able to offer some user experience? Is it worth just over a grand? How does it compare to the Skywatcher Evostar 150?

Many thanks!

[DOBBY]

£600 of it is the mount...Celestron CG-5 GT (GoTo) telescope mount. so it's £418 for the 'scope...

compared to £498 for the Evo 150 First Light Optics - Skywatcher Evostar 150 OTA & then adding a mount

[ollypenrice]

These are the same telescope though the mounts vary. I have one branded as Helios. You'd probably want to know that they are almost worthless on the second hand market, fetching £150 to £200 at most for the scope only. This is not because they are no good. In fact they really are rather nice, giving sharp, contrasty views with some false colour on the bright objects. Rather they are unfashionable, bulky and not suited to imaging because cameras exaggerate the false colour and a big mount would be needed to image with this long tube.

The design is old fashioned but not unattractive. It certainly looks like a telescope! If going down this road I'd buy a second hand tube assembly and a better mount, say an HEQ5.

Olly

[AstroMum]

Thank you both.

I'm not fussed about it looking old-fashioned, In fact I actually quite like the solid black. It does indeed look like a telescope!

I'm considering tinkering in astrophotography, looks like this would be my main concern regarding this 'scope.

Will keep an eye out for any secondhand OTAs, sounds like a bargain could be had.

[ollypenrice]

OK, this is very much not a scope for astrophotography. It is an achromatic refractor, not an apochromatic one, meaning not all the colours focus at the same point. It would give big stars with bloated blue haloes and also show distortions away from the middle of the picture.

Olly

[AstroMum]

I know I can't stretch to an apochromatic unfortunately, but this is something I could upgrade to in future.

When I say tinkering, I do mean just that. I'm no pro at photography and would really be looking at very basic imaging. As much as I'd love to produce the more complex imagery I've seen around, I don't think I'll have the patience for it. I certainly won't be forking out on a DSLR to accompany the 'scope unless I'm really bitten by the bug.

My primary use will be visual, though I don't yet know if planetary or DSO will be my thing.

[John]

I've owned a couple of the Synta made 6" F/8 achromats and a Meade AR6 which is a 152mm F/8 acrho. Mounting them steadily is a real challenge - a standard EQ5 is not really enough. I found the CG5 with 2" steel tubed legs OK for visual with the Synta's but the Meade needs more. Deep sky views were nice and contrasty. Lunar and planetary decent but they produce enough CA for it to be rather noticeable and meant that the optics sort of run out of puff at 180x or so.

I managed to get hold of an Aries Chromacor corrector which matched the scopes reasonably well and that removed 80% of the CA and corrected the spherical aberration that these scopes posses. The results were pretty impressive - close to ED doublet performance

The mounting challenges remained though so I've now downsized my refractors to a ED102 and a ED120 both of which I love using

The used value of the chinese achromats is quite low as Olly says - I bought and sold mine as OTA's for around £150 each.

[AstroMum]

Thanks for sharing your experience John. Still seems like a nice buy with some adjustments, but am a bit worried about how hefty it is. Won't be able to rely on my husband helping me get setup all the time.

Definite food for thought though.

[John]

This is a rather poor pic of me (6 foot tall) with a Meade AR6 152mm F/8. It's a bit of a beast (the scope that is ):

[AstroMum]

You're not kidding there!

Don't think I'll be able to lift that to be honest, let alone fiddle about putting it on the mount at the same time!

[ollypenrice]

It'd look more of a beast with dwarfish me holding it, I kid you not! Really must get round to challenging John to a fight one of these days... but not before I've got me running shoes on!

Olly

[A McEwan]

The trouble is the mount needs to be up high to give clearance for the eyepiece when sweeping the sky. So as well as lifting the tube, you have to lift it up high and then attach it to the mount all at once! If it's any consolation you'd only drop it once...

False colour-wise, I use a Baader Semi-Apo filter on mine and it performs very well. I can use mine up to 300x or so with very good clean results on Jupiter.

Ant