Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS Telescope (Telescope Only)
by Celestron

List Price: $5,098.99
Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details

• Focal length of 2800mm
• 279mm (11-inch) diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain refractor
• Observe immediately with the backlit computerized GPS control unit.
• 9 automatic slewing speeds to cover 40,000 celestial objects
• Common sense menu descriptions

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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS Telescope (Telescope Only)

Customer Review: One Of The Best Scopes Available
Summary: 5 Stars

The optics are great too. To beat this scope you would have to make a huge investment. I comparison shopped this scope and the equivalent Meade scopes and came to the conclusion that this was the hands down winner (and I was a dedicated Meade user before buying this instrument). It's one of the most satisfying purchases I have ever made.

I haven't used this or any scope for astrophotography, but it's tailor made for that kind of application as well.

It's only drawback is the obvious one - - it's big, heavy and not a lot of fun to cart around. That's not a knock on the scope - - it would be an issue for any large scope of any design. Despite it's size and weight I find it comfortable to transport to dark sky sites and fairly easy to set up. If you're used to little 5" SCTs this will be a big change, but once you look through the thing you will gladly endure the minor workout that comes with lifting and moving the scope.

I highly recommend getting the JMI case that fits this scope - - another worthwhile investment. You should also consider investing in a high quality 2" star diagonal and a set of very good 2" eyepieces for the instrument as well (i.e. Meade Ultra Wides or Naglers). The big eyepieces through this scope are like going on a spacewalk.

Description of Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS Telescope (Telescope Only)

As with every Celestron telescope I have owned over the past thirty years, the optics are superb. The OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) now consists of a carbon fiber tube, not the old aluminum tube of past years. carbon fiber reduces the weight slightly, but, more importantly, reduces the tube expansion that can take place due to temperature changes.

The drive base and electronics have been completely re-engineered from the ground up. Celestron has done away with the old sand cast housing and replaced it with a new lighter-weight design which is beefier than the previous drive base and fork arms. The new design also sports two ergonomically placed handles that make lifting the telescope and forks a breeze. On the electronics side, it is now possible to perform an upgrade of the motor controller software via the Internet, and the scope can be controlled via a laptop using any number of star charting programs. I found it was possible to simply click on an object on the star chart and the scope tracked right it.

First time setup is smooth as silk. It takes perhaps 15 to 20 minutes and works like this: The telescope downloads the needed information from the GPS satellite constellation for later setups, so all setups after that take only moments. Later setups consist of telling the telescope to perform a GPS alignment, and then centering two setup stars in the finder and eyepiece.

Once the scope is set up, there are three ways to control it: hand controller, virtual hand controller (on your laptop), or via a star charting program, also on a laptop. The end result is pretty spectacular. The rings of Saturn were clearly visible for me, as well as the Cassini division. Using high power, I was able to see the cloud bands and patterns on Jupiter, as well as surface detail on Mars. At low power, I found that deep sky objects such as the Great Nebula in Orion also made for fantastic viewing. --Dave Cole

Pros:

• Portable
• Excellent GOTO accuracy
• Great optics
• Sturdy carbon fiber tube

Cons:

• A bit heavy for a single person to mount
• Takes Some getting used to seat the telescope on the tripod
• Hand Controller mount is not too useful during operation
• Does not come with a carry case of any kind

With the filter-limits feature, the NexStar database displays only those objects that are above the horizon for your exact date, time, and location. If the seeing conditions are bad, you can filter out objects below a certain altitude above the horizon. Consequently, as you scroll through the database's lists of objects, only objects within the altitude limits you set will be displayed on the hand control.

Other features include:

• 279mm (11-inch) diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain refractor
• Focal length of 2800mm and focal ratio of f10
• Computerized hand control with backlit LCD
• 40,000+ object database
• Storage for numerous user-defined objects

Catadioptric

• Camera & Photo > Binoculars, Telescopes & Optics > Telescopes > Catadioptric