About to buy a Celestron Nexstar 8 SE

[DiamondSmiles]

Hi everyone,

After waiting years to be able to get my first decent scope, the 8 SE is only weeks away from landing (gently i hope) on my doorstep.

I have been pondering what would be the best thing to do for extra eyepieces and filters. There is the Celestron Eyepiece and Filter Kit but after reading a review in the Sky At Night the advice seemed to be to buy a couple of decent eyepieces, filters and a good barlow.

So has anyone here bought the above Celestron kit and found it to be worthwhile investment, or would it be best to buy two other eyepieces and what sizes would be ideal to add to the 25mm that comes with the telescope?

Thanks

Ian

[Capricorn]

You will get 2 opposing views on this.

Some like the idea of a kit, others think you should get individual eyepieces.

The 8SE is a long focal length so the basic plossl will work quite well in them.

What focal lengths are in the Celestron Kit?

If whatever are below 8mm then you will I suspect not use them.

Basically 7mm, 6mm, 5mm are too small for the scope, so little point in having them.

Not sure how useful the (if any) filters are.

Say this as I have had scopes for 12 years and don't own any filters, so seems they are not 100% essential.

You don't say the cost of the kit, I am guessing the £149 kit at FLO ??

I am one that prefers individual eyepieces, quality seems better.

In you position I would probably go and get 4 of the Vixem NPL Plossl's, the kit only has 5 in and will not be as good as the Vixens.

(OK, not keen on barlows either )

Any pennies left over get an ND filter for looking at the moon perhaps.

If you want a barlow then 3 NPL's and try to locate a Tal 2x barlow.

[Marki]

Hi Ian

I got one of these kits to go with my 8SE when I bought that. I'd say at the time the 32mm was useful and the barlow got a some use, but I barely used the rest (and never used the colour filters). I'd be inclined to go for two decent eps - maybe something at 30mm + for wider fields, and something in the 5 - 15mm range (or even a decent zoom) to give the higher magnifications. The long focal length of the 8SE means you can get nice high magnifications without needing a barlow, so that could wait. The 8SE is a great scope though - nice aperture and good optics. I had my first ever view of Saturn through this scope and it blew me away....you'll love it!

[pvaz]

I have used this scope before and it's great. Planetary views are tack sharp and it's good on DSOs as well. The only draw back is the large DSOs will be hard to fit the in the EP as the long focal length limits the lowest magnification you can get from it.

Regardless of quality the kit won't be ideal for that scope, the short EPs will provide too much magnification on that scope, for the regular atmospheric conditions. Less then ideal atmospheric conditions, combined with high magnifications (200x up) provide shimmering views, smilar to looking through the air on top of a candle's flame.

So a few individual EPs will be best. I would try to get a 32mm, a 15mm and an 8mm for to go with that scope. 32mm for observing large DSOs and to find stuff, 15 for medium size DSOs and 8mm for planets, globulars and planetary nebulae. That should cover all needs, though you may want to add a few to shorten the gaps at a latter time.

As said before the only useful filters are a ND filter for the moon (it's too bright on a scope) and maybe an UHC filter to tease out some detail on a few nebulae. For other objects the only thing that really helps is dark skies and larger aperture, though 8" is a pretty good aperture to keep you going for years and larger apertures make very heavy/cumbersome scopes.

[Dunkster]

Welcome and congrats! The 8SE is a great scope.

I'd go along with all of the above

Depending on your interests, something around 8-9mm for planetary and 12-14 for globs, etc.

The included 25mm is OK as a finder (if it's the E-Lux the same as I got with my 6SE) but if the light pollution isn't too bad where you are you could use a wider/longer EP. The light pollution situation isn't great for me, and I find that around 80x is about as low as I want to go before the view looks too orangey

If you're blessed with darker skies, then something like a Baader Hyperion Aspheric 31mm would be a nice match and give about 1.1 degrees FOV. Alone it costs about the same as the Celestron kit, but the experience would be very different.

[DiamondSmiles]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies with great advise. Think i'm going to like it here!

To add to my first post the kit is £145 from Sherwoods and focal lengths are 6mm, 8mm, 13mm, 17mm and 32mm. Plus Barlow lens 2x 1.25mm, six colour filters and a moon filter. Unfortunately living in Portsmouth i have bad light pollution but i won't let that beat me.

Seems, that the view is that my £145 would be better spent on 32mm, 15mm and 8mm eyepieces and a moon filter. So i think i'll go with that for now.

Cheers for your help

[Dunkster]

If you're mobile, Hants Astro (I think) observe at Butser Hill, just up the A3 a bit. Might be worth checking out hantsastro.org , the 8SE should give some cracking views up there

[hemihaggis1]

dont bother with kits , you will end up only using a few ep`s , better to spend the money on two or three bst explorers ..or a baader zoom