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Thinking of getting myself a bigger scope


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Dear Firends,

After moving from UAE to Thailand for a couple of years I now find myself working for my old company and this time in Sahara Desert in Libya. When I left Thailand I donated my scope to the local school there in Thailand in my community. It was a Celestron 130 SLT. Of course in Libya there is no question of having a scope here, it is too dangerous and one would never get it through customs in one piece anyway....It is a pity because the night sky in the desert is nothing short of spectacular, even if there are a few oil fires in my area that add a bit of light pollution.

The good news is that my company is planning to shift me back to my old job in the UAE and I am thinking to purchase a new scope there, probably the Celestron 8SE.

During my time with the smaller scope, I found it to be lacking in terms of detail in my planetary observations, particualry Jupiter and Saturn and not good results with Mars. As for the DSO's they were not more than faint blobs of light. I would like to hear your views about the 8SE and whether it would be logical step forward as a slightly more advanced scope. (aperture-wise)

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Are there any jobs going at your place?!

But seriously... if you can only have one scope and you want it to work well on both solar system and deep sky objects, then I should imagine you can't go far wrong with the 8SE (maybe think about a focal reducer for the DSO work), it's fairly light and portable for it's 8" aperture (though I freely admit I've never owned one myself).

I would say that if you were thinking of getting into astrophotography sooner rather than later (if at all) then maybe the Nexstar mount wouldn't be the best (in terms of carrying capacity, tracking accuracy and field rotation).

Craig

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Hi Graig,

I wasn't really thinking of Astro photography, but I have read that the 8SE has a rather smallish mount that is maybe a bit weak for the scope. Anyway, I will have a look at the scopes once I get to go to UAE...

I am working for a construction company and we are building access roads for the oil company somewhere in the desert, there is work here but the security is not so good, although it is much more quiet in the desert...

It is like living on the moon here.

George

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I'll get in my praise for the 8se before the Dob Squad arrive. Its a great scope all round. Nice big aperture and lightweight to carry. The tripod legs are made of 1" thick solid steel (i think its 1") and it is a very stable platform.

You cant really go wrong with the 8se. Yes, there are other scopes such as Dobs, but you seem pretty keen on the 8se. I have one,so i'm not going to try to convince you otherwise on another scope.

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