Celestar 8 De Luxe - now (July 2001) replaced with a Meade LX90

My first telescope, as mentioned in First Steps was an Orion Optics Europa 8" f6 Newtonian. But it soon gave way in August 1999 to my Celestron Celestar 8 de luxe. This 8" f10 Schmidt-Cassegrain design (an almost identical version is produced by Meade) is deservedly very popular and available world wide.

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The 'scope came with a 26 mm Plössl eyepiece and star diagonal, but I soon added a 17mm and 10 mm to the collection. I already had a 2x Barlow from the Europa time. After seeing the Perseus Double Cluster through my friend Paul Jenkins' 40 mm eyepiece, that was next on the list. The collection was completed in November 1999 when I was in Toronto, and bought a Televue Radian 8mm. What a wonderful eyepiece!

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 As I became familiar with the telescope, and started imaging with a video camera, I reckoned that an electric focusser would be useful. Then an unfortunate hit and run to my sister's parked car in Toronto during the above visit in November yielded a couple of geared 12 volt electric motors from the broken wing mirror. Lash up mounts, two way switches, a couple of 'O' rings, and voila! Two electric focussers, one for me and one for Paul.

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I also made a substantial bracket from Aluminium angle to mount my Video Recorder. This later came in useful for afocal imaging with my web camera

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I chose a Celestron SCT rather than a Meade partly on weight, partly on specification. Of all the 'upgrades' of the de luxe version over the standard Celestar 8, (dual multi speed drives, stronger fork mount, 9 x 50 finder, Plössl eyepiece and extendable tripod) the 9 x 50 finder is the most immediately useful. The extra light gathering capacity (almost 3 times) over the 6 x 30 comes into its own when star hopping.

The assembly is more robust (and stable), consequently a little heavier, but can still be conveniently carried in and out of the house, and the fork mount and tube sit quite happily on the back seat of my car. (In fact two do, when Paul and I go dark siteing!). There are one or two minor niggles, but overall this is a good general purpose telescope, very user friendly, and of course supported by an extensive accessory market. I'm still exploring the capabilities of the 'scope - perhaps digital setting circles will be the next step, followed by a 'proper' CCD Camera with autoguiding. Watch this space!