Celestron nexstar 102 slt

[Comet71210]

Hi guys, havent posted for a while and was hoping to get abit of advice, im looking at getting a little scope to take to the mother inlaws caravan in scarborough as we've started spending quite some time there and would save me some time and space if i just purchased one for there, ive been offered a celestron nexstar 102 slt for a really good price and just wondered what they are actually like performance and durability wise, any info would be greatly apprecieted, thanks in advance. Clear skys 

[Cosmic Geoff]

The SLT is a useful GoTo mount. The tripod is on the wobbly side but if you want it light and portable...

The scope will be something like my 102mm Startravel f5, which is a handy widefield scope.   I put the Startravel on the SLT mount and found it capable of surprisingly useful tasks with a camera attached (admittedly on a wooden tripod rather than the alloy one). 

I have had both for several years.

[beka]

Hi Comet71217,

I have the SLT 102 that I use once in a while. It is really a wide field scope - very good for things like the brighter messier objects - Pleiades, Beehive, Butterfly clusters and so on. I have found low power views with something like a 32mm eyepiece of areas of the Milky Way or the Orion Belt area quite spectacular under magnitude 5 skies. Under these low magnifications the mount seems to be stable enough. I have tried higher power views of the Moon and Jupiter (like with a 9mm eyepiece and 2X barlow giving 146X) but chromatic and spherical aberrations start to become obtrusive and focusing is more difficult with the unsteady mount. Filters might help a lot - for example a the dark green filter in the Celestron Eyepiece and Filter kit seemed to make the view of Jupiter much sharper with banding and the GRS easily visible. Regarding durability I have had it for several years and it has not failed at all. Alignment (I usually do the two star) works like a charm. If high magnification planetary viewing is not high on your requirements I think you can be quite happy with this scope. 

All the best

[Marty1012]

Has anyone got any deep sky images taken with the Celestron 102 , just wondering what to.expect of this scope as I am looking to mount one on my Celestron advanced GT EQ mount

[joe aguiar]

What's funny I'm on my way home and just found an add 102gt selling 120cdn. I offered 100 he said ok.

That's about 60uk

He said he bought for his son but he didnt get into it.so hes selling it.

 tripod 5 ep set 102 I think its 6.5 so semi fast.still with box.

U said to image with issue would be too much colour. Its bit better than f5 but 6.5 will still have alot false colour.

Its probably ok for casual viewing but not AP or imaging. 

Joe

[joe aguiar]

ops i just opened it and its a f/9.8 so colour correction should be good much much better then if it was the f/6.5 version or f5 version

joejaguar

Edited October 25, 2019 by joe aguiar