Celestron Nexstar 4SE

[ChrisEdu]

My scope arrived today - hooray, so I thought I'd post some initial impressions of the product - please bear in mind that I've not yet had the chance to use it to view the night sky. Hopefully, that will come tonight!

Packaging: Blimey - sturdy and as someone else has said, rather like Russian dolls - one box, inside another, inside another! Along with the boxes comes plenty of bubble wrap and foam. The bubble wrap was the fun big bubble type - BANG! I would also say that the main product box does kind of give the impression that this scope is for all the family - maybe a bit of a toy?! Toy was not what I thought, though, as I started getting the pieces out of the packaging!

Unpacking the pieces I was first impressed by the quality of the tripod - nice, thick legs, although the height adjustment could be better - I'm not a fan of screw type adjustment, I prefer the system on my Manfrotto photography tripod.

The instructions on how to assemble the scope were nice and clear, with good photos to go along with the description. Soon had the bits put together, although I had to find a screwdriver to fit the finder and to take off the battery cover. Not quite sure why there was a spanner included though!

The colour of the tube was a surprise - not the horrible bright orange that comes across in photos, rather a nice kind of metallic russet colour.

I really like how the controller fits on to the arm of the mount system, although as someone has said before, it could do with a longer cable.

Once I'd got it all assembled and powered up, I had a good lok at all the bits and pieces. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the build quality. Yes, there is a lot of plastic, but then what doesn't have plastic these days? The plastic used seems to be of a pretty sturdy quality and should be good for many years use.

The tube is lovely! The lens cap is a bit of a pig to get on and off. It could do with either having a screw fit or a spring system like on camera lens caps. Looking inside the scope at the main mirror, I was somewhat surprised to see some sort of debris on the mirror! I hope it doesn't have a detrimental effect upon the performance.

The finder, as has been said before, seems a bit cheap in terms of its quality when compared to the rest of the scope. The eyepiece that is supplied with the scope seemed like a reasonable quality item, with a nice feel to it. Looking through it at things in the garden I found it a bit awkward to keep a nice clear view, rather than get black / blank areas, but I guess that will come with experience.

Using the handset was a delight. The controller is just the right size and shape - obviously someone has thought about it. USing the arrows to move the tube was easy enough, although I'd prefer it if the up and down were reversed, but that's just my preference.

I have fitted some batteries to have a proper play tonight - can't wait. I appreciate they might not last long, but it will be interesting to see how much use I get from them.

Overall, my first impression, apart from the marks on the mirror, is very positive. It is certainly well worth the money and I'm sure it will be a great way of beginning my further exploration of the sky and as a way of getting my children hooked!

[gary1968]

Glad your please with it :hello1: I'm sure you wil have hours / weeks / years of use from this scope.

Gary

[FLO]

Looking inside the scope at the main mirror, I was somewhat surprised to see some sort of debris on the mirror!

So am I, I made a point of checking it prior to dispatch. Is it easily visible? Sometimes a tiny fleck of blackening paint can become dislodged from the tube interior during transit, could it be that?

[EA2007]

Its a great little scope;

Be sure to use a 12V powetank with it....don't use batteries, otherwise you will find that you will only get about 5 mins out of it and that 5 mins will be all taken up with setting it up, so be warned. You'll find that after alignment, slewing to an object will cease halfway through and the whole unit will freeze, so use the powertank.

Its pretty easy to use the wedge align feature although its a little back and forwards in the manual but once your up and running it tracks well. The noise may be an issue, especially at full slew speed, it really does sound like a coffee grinder especially when compared to the silky smooth and quiet Synta mounts.

If your after doing astroimaging with an SLR then dont get your hopes up, the shake created when you close the shutter will vibrate the (rather flimsy) plastic fork arm and this will be reproduced in the image. Also, although the tracking is good, you will find that exposures >45 secs will show star trails and because of the high focal ratio faint DSO's are pretty much out of the question as you need a far longer exposure time. Combine this with the small FOV (Field OF View) then objects such as M31 will not be worth the effort.

There is however the autoguider port which I never used on mine, so this may combat your problem, but for this you would need a secondary scope, adding this to the OTA may take its toll on the plastic fork arm, so be aware. If your wanting to do imaging, consider a CCD or webcam, as this is a purely electrico (not mechanical) mechanism then there will be no shutter shake and you may get better images. The scope is god for lunar imaging tho. You can count planetary deatil out, I wanted to get Jupiter and all I got was an orange blob, no cloud detail at all and this was on a pinpoint focus. You can however get the moons (Medici's / Galilean) of Jupiter rather well with an exposure time of around 2.5 seconds although your image of Jupiter itself will be extremely bright.

Probably raised more bad points than good with that but nevermind, you have yourself a good little Maksutov so don't worry.

[thing]

I wouldn't worry about the black flecks Chris unless there's a mountain of them. I bought an 8" Newtonian last year and it still has black flecks of paint dropping off onto it.

[ChrisEdu]

Looking inside the scope at the main mirror, I was somewhat surprised to see some sort of debris on the mirror!

So am I, I made a point of checking it prior to dispatch. Is it easily visible? Sometimes a tiny fleck of blackening paint can become dislodged from the tube interior during transit, could it be that?

It might well be that - it does look black. I'm sure it's not going to be an issue. Mind you, I did have a problem when my knob fell off tonight! The focus knob came off in my hand as I was using it - they obviously didn't tighten it up enough. Not to worry though, I got the rubber cover off the inner part and was able to reattach it and make sure the grub was nice and tight. Now all I need is for the sky to clear and then I can get back out there. Did get some nice views of the moon earlier though, good crater detail, although some of it still seemed bright even with the moon filter. I might try the sunglasses idea too!

By the way, what's the best way to stop the eyepiece from getting condensation / fogging up?

[EA2007]

It might well be that - it does look black. I'm sure it's not going to be an issue. Mind you, I did have a problem when my knob fell off tonight! The focus knob came off in my hand as I was using it - they obviously didn't tighten it up enough. Not to worry though, I got the rubber cover off the inner part and was able to reattach it and make sure the grub was nice and tight.

Sorry but that whole paragraph reads quite differently if you look at it in a different light.....ha ha

[ChrisEdu]

I'm sure I don't know what you mean!

[thing]

It might well be that - it does look black. I'm sure it's not going to be an issue. Mind you, I did have a problem when my knob fell off tonight! The focus knob came off in my hand as I was using it - they obviously didn't tighten it up enough. Not to worry though, I got the rubber cover off the inner part and was able to reattach it and make sure the grub was nice and tight.

Sorry but that whole paragraph reads quite differently if you look at it in a different light.....ha ha

That was my immediate thought too. God I need to get out more..........

[kniclander]

childish but still funny :D

[The Warthog]

Please, tell us more about the visual image. And did you find the goto accurate?

[ChrisEdu]

The GOTO was completely useless! I couldn't get the Skyalign to work and when I aligned the scope using the moon ti then couldn't find things properly, even when asked to show the moon!

The image was pretty good though, I thought. The moon was lovely and clear and I have seen the Orion nubula, which was pretty clear too - I could tell there was something there that was cloud like. Look at Jupiter was reasonably good - I could just about make out a couple of bands on the planet when using a 9.4mm EP and could see 3 of the moons. All of these things were found manually, due to the GOTO issues.

[gary1968]

I'm surprised you found the goto useless ? I've had a SLT and now a SE and they goto on both was very good, provided the power supply was up to it. Not sure if you already know this but dont try to use the scope with AA's it just wont work. Get a mains adaptor or a power tank and it'll work fine.

Gary

[Tiny]

The go-to on our 8 is pinpoint accurate - having set up with 2 star align. Try doing this on your scope. Do it indoors and not in the dark - after working out where a couple of pointer stars will be if you could see them.

In two star you point at the first - then when told what it is the scope will point at the second. If you have set things right the scope should get close. If it's nowhere near you may be doing something wrong as in wrong co-ordinates for where you live, wrong time or wrong hemisphere.

Using a go-to is a learning process but the go-to on your scope is pretty user friendly.

[ChrisEdu]

The go-to on our 8 is pinpoint accurate - having set up with 2 star align. Try doing this on your scope. Do it indoors and not in the dark - after working out where a couple of pointer stars will be if you could see them.

How do you work out where stars would be if you can't even see them from inside?! I know that I've set things properly as I've checked, checked and checked again!

[EA2007]

Chris, I would (sorry to say and with the greatest respect to Tiny) swerve that last comment, as your not going to be that sure of where things are in the daytime.

Persevere with your nighttime alignment, it will happen don't worry! I used the 3 star alignment mostly but for the wedge align I had to use the semi-manual 2 star align and always got brilliant alignment from it, the best bet is to use two stars that are either side of the meridian. In late summer I went for Arcturus and Deneb but perhaps finding some star in Pegasus or Andromeda would be better (I had a hedge in the way!)

[gary1968]

Not so sure about thre other alignment routines on the SE as I only ever use Skyalign. It has always worked for me, very quick to align and always puts objects in the FOV.

I have set up in the house in day time for trial purposes and use the solar system align. I just point the scope in the rough direction of the sun and align it there. It will then point roughly where yuo think it should.

Gary

[ringz]

I always use the pole star for aligning when I'm doing tests indoors with my SLT mount. I just point the scope roughly north and guestimate 50 odd degrees. Works like a charm :shock:

--

Martyn

[Tiny]

Too true, as for other stars just set up the time for when you would be out in the evening and know what bright stars are where. All you need is Polaris and (say) Vega/Deneb/Altair. The whole idea is to find if the alignment function works and is aiming in the rough ballpark of where the stars are. (It also confirms that you are doing it right.) Then, going out in the dark you know the actions you have to take and what the scope does. It is simple common sense to do it one step at a time rather than do everything at once and in the dark.

[Astro_Baby]

Chris - mine aligns fine BUT there is an important thing to take into account. DONT use the scope to find stars with use the red dot finder.

I found by experimenting that the scope cant seem to get an alignment unless the stars are visible with the red dot finder. I imagine this is because looking through the eyepiece many more stars are visible and the SkyAlign software is probably built to calculate its position around a few hundred naked eye objects.

Also try and align using stars that are quite some distance apart.

I have run mine only a few times and its gotten alignment each time with the automatic SkyAlign. Oh also - obvious check your time settting hasnt slipped at all.

[ChrisEdu]

I was using the red dot finder to select the stars and using stars on opposite sides of the sky! Likewise, I got wise to the time issue, as I found it seemed to be different everytime I switched on.

[palefire]

If the sky align thing isn't working I'd reiterate the point made above about the power supply. I'd also add the further caveat that THESE SCOPES DO NOT WORK WITH RECHARGABLE AA BATTERIES. (Rechargables only output 1.2V rather than 1.5V - when this is multiplied by 8 this means the mount does not have enough voltage to work properly)

(maybe Steve -FLO- & Adam -Celestron- could bung a slip of paper in the box making this point as most complaints I've seen on here come back to this issue)

[Doc]

Very attractive scopes and from what I've heard very accurate.

You have a great grab and go scope.

We need pics Chris

[ChrisEdu]

If the sky align thing isn't working I'd reiterate the point made above about the power supply. I'd also add the further caveat that THESE SCOPES DO NOT WORK WITH RECHARGABLE AA BATTERIES. (Rechargables only output 1.2V rather than 1.5V - when this is multiplied by 8 this means the mount does not have enough voltage to work properly)

(maybe Steve -FLO- & Adam -Celestron- could bung a slip of paper in the box making this point as most complaints I've seen on here come back to this issue)

I've been using a PowerTank.

As for pictures, hmm.... What of?!

[Doc]

The knob that fell off

No only kidding. Your scope, your set up.

Pictures are better then a thousand words, well thats what they say.