Celestron advice

[or8it]

I’m looking to get my first scope at some point. I‘m primarily looking at the second hand market as opposed to buying from new. I want a scope for visual to begin with but will be looking to do imaging in the future. A friend has a Celestron CPC 1100 that I’ve seen, a lovely scope but far too big for what I’d want. After doing some research I think I’d be happy with a 8” SCT, it seems to be a good all rounder and Celestron seems a popular choice. I’ve seen come up on the secondhand market over the last few months various 8” SCTs , where they differ is their mounting and this is where I’d like advice. Ive seen one on a fork mount that comes with a wedge as well as one on an Equatorial mount. I’m trying to weigh up the pros and cons of both but they both seem very similar when you factor in the wedge.

Any thoughts? Thank you.

[Freddie]

What type of imaging are you planning to get into in the future? This will have a big impact on the type of mount and scope that would be appropriate.

[PeterCPC]

Those scopes will be good for planetary imaging. If you want to do DSO imaging you would be better looking for a small refractor on an EQ mount.

Peter

[Cosmic Geoff]

Talking Celestron, the cheapest 8" SCT is the C8 SE.  This is a compact and lightweight package, and I can pick up my assembly and carry it outdoors. Be aware this is a visual scope. If you try to do any kind of imaging with it, you are likely to find there is too much vibration, too much backlash and it's generally a pain. But if you are determined, you can do planetary imaging.

Avoid anything to do with wedges. I have not used one, but from what I have read it is hard to do polar alignment and if you want to do that sort of thing, you should have bought a German equatorial in the first place.

You can buy a C8 bundled with an equatorial mount (AVX).  Probably a good setup for general imaging.

The CPC800 comes with a substantial fork mount, and build-in GPS.  It's a great scope for visual, and planetary imaging and suchlike, and with the alt-az mount and GPS, setup is really easy.  It is extremely stable.  But be aware that the OTA/fork assembly is seriously heavy at around 20KG.

An optical variant is the EDGE HD, which have a corrector to give sharper images to the edge of the (photographic) field.  Not necessary if you want to view or image small objects that don't fill the FOV. And check the price of focal reducers...

Another mount variant - the Evolution - is a better engineered version of the SE format. It has extra features including built-in wifi. Seem to use same tripods as SE though.

All these use the Nexstar software which I have always found easy to use. It features Solar System alignment - a useful feature which some other popular brands don't have.

I hope this helps.

 

 

[or8it]

Thanks for the advice. I'd definitely be looking at planetary visuals and imaging to begin with so was leaning towards the CPC. Also storage wise. Wouldn't a CPC 800 be smaller to store than an equivalent 8" SCT on an EQ mount such as an AVX?

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Wouldn't a CPC 800 be smaller to store than an equivalent 8" SCT on an EQ mount such as an AVX?

Not significantly, I think. The folded tripods will take up much the same footprint and the OTA would be easy to store once taken of the AVX mount.  And if you are going to move the CPC800 any distance, you may want to use a trolley.