Celestron Advanced C10-NGT 10"/254mm Reflector Telescope Kit

Comments about Celestron Advanced C10-NGT 10.0"/254mm Reflector Telescope Kit:

Enough light gathering power for serious viewers, clear, crisp images.
It is a bit heavy and cumbersome to transport and set up. A scope buggy would make it much easier to use.

Comments about Celestron Advanced C10-NGT 10.0"/254mm Reflector Telescope Kit:

This is my second telescope the first being a 4.5 inch reflector.I was very concerned about having the skill to use a goto scope without real experience. I have now used this telescope for 11 months and since the very first day have had little or no trouble with finding many deep sky targets. If I have any missgivings it would be that because the scope finds things so well for me, I don't have to know stars or constellations.

Problems Encountered: One small mechanical failure which was immediately repaired by celestron

Comments about Celestron Advanced C10-NGT 10.0"/254mm Reflector Telescope Kit:

I purchased the 11048 model with the motorized GOTO. If you are not going to use the motor drive, then you should buy an Orion dobsonian, but I am 100% pleased with this celestron scope. I don't want to deal with having to manually chase objects as the earth turns and I plan to ultimately take pictures. This classic Newtonian is probably the lowest cost motorized drive telescope configuration on the market. I like the fact that the Newtonian is open and I can work on it and do not have to worry about chromatic aberration from a glass front surface. Overall this scope was better than expected. The GOTO points right to the galaxies it is supposed to find and the motorized mount follows the celestrial movement very well. The optics are excellent and diffraction limited, but I added some accessories to get there. For one thing, I use a laser collimator ($70), to make all the mirrors dead alignment. Next, I purchased a Televue visual paracor adaptor ($300)(which corrects coma at the perimeter of the field of any Newtonian parabolic optical system) and I use wide field Nagler eyepieces($300). With this system I see razor sharp, diffraction limited images to the edge of the field at 560X. The telescope comes with an excellent finder scope, but you may also want to add a simple sight scope to quickly get rough alignments. I also added the Celestron polar axis alignment scope ($40) that sits within the polar axis of the telescope so you can get the best tracking for photography. Even with all these adds, your still way cheaper than a SC telescope, and it is 10/

Problems Encountered: The only thing I would recommend is a fine focus knob. It is easy to pass right through the razor sharp focus point. I have had to adapt myself to learn how to turn the knob very slowly, but there must be a better way.

Previous Equivalent Items Owned: Celestron 4 refractor C102-HD, also a good scope

Items I Recommend: Teleview paracor and the polar axis scope