Nexstar 8SE upgrade options?

[mylatestwhim]

Hi all, I've just secured a deal on an 8SE for some observing (no plans for serious photography)

It comes with the Celestron ep kit and dew shield plus carry case. My father has graciously put some of the money up for the scope so I'm only left with upgrade costs.

I was thinking of upgrading the finder to a telrad or something under £100 and also a simple planetary webcam maybe?

Also I don't mind spending on eyepieces. But what else might I need?

Kit I have as follows and my main interest is in a nice finder

- Celestron NexStar 8SE

- Eye Piece and Filter Kit 6mm ,8mm, 13mm, 17mm, 25mm and 32mm Eyepieces and 2x Barlow Lens

- Celestron Dew Shield

- T-Adapter for Niko-Celestron Case

[John]

Congratulations - it's a nice scope 

My advice would be to have a few sessions with the equipment you already have before adding further accessories. You have all the stuff you need to get you up and running with the scope and some experience with it will enable you to make much better decisions on where to spend your hard earned £'s next.

I think the 8SE comes with a red dot type finder and it's only used for finding the alignment stars so a Telrad may well be OTT for that purpose.

[Clockwork_Orange]

+1 on the nice scope (I have one ). Before you rush out spending money on new eyepieces my advice would be to swap the collimating screws if it's not been done already. Rothervalley optics now stock and sell the bobs knobs kit and it will make life so much easier when it comes to keeping the collimating spot on. I'm not connected to Rothervalley but noticed an advert on astro buy and sell that said they now stocked them.

Enjoy

Regards john

[swamp thing]

You may want to look at some more dew protection. SCT tend to attract dew by the bucket load. Nothing worse than having to pack up because your scopes dewed up.

[Luke]

Top of my list would be a dew heater. My 8 inch SCT tends to dew up if there is no heater, even with the dew shield on.

Then I would upgrade the diagonal if it's the stock one to a good 2 inch diagonal.

Then I would spend some time with the eyepieces you are getting and figure out which one I used the most, then upgrade that one.

I would probably leave the webcam for a while if it was me, just because it's a bit tricky in my view. So why not get a nice lot of viewing in first, then look at a webcam when you fancy freshening it up?

That's a lovely, powerful telescope you are getting. Congrats!

[CodnorPaul]

Agree with the above - I had the 8SE (still got the OTA as it is a cracking scope) and have upgraded:

[CodnorPaul]

Agree with the above - I had the 8SE (still got the OTA as it is a cracking scope) and have upgraded:

Sorry pressed wrong button!  I have upgraded:

Diagonal to the 2" Celestron XLT one

2" EP

UHC and Neodymium filters

Mount changed to an NEQ6 (DONT consider this yet though)

Dew heaters x 2 - one for the corrector and one for the EP

Oh and you also want to consider power requirements - I use a 105Ah leisure battery, don't go for the powerpacks that are very expensive for what you get and don't last long

[mylatestwhim]

Thanks all for the sound advice! I'm going to buy the bobs nobs and dew heater for now as you advise. Long journey to collect from London tomorrow so expect a few weeks of cloud and rain -sorry guys-

I have a pair of big leisure batts (115 ah) with 12 output sockets from my electric boat engine so I'm ok for power..

Thanks again -- !

[mylatestwhim]

Sorry to link to another forum but I have just come across this 21 page thread showing upgrades to Nexstar scopes.

Droool 

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1729944/page/0/view/expanded/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1/vc/1

Well worth a flick through if you own one