Celestron C8S-GT


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Brand and Model:Celestron C8S-GT
Price ($USD):$1299.00
Type:Schmidt-Cassegrain
Attributes: checked Go-To un-checked PEC
Aperture:8" (203.2mm)
f Ratio:f/10
Focal Length:2032mm
Finder:6x30
Electric Power:12V DC
Mount:AS CG-5
Tripod:Adj. Heavy Duty
Weight (lbs):
Dimensions (w/h/d):
Description:The ASC8 is an 8" aperture multicoated hand-figured Schmidt-Cassegrain optical tube on a rugged computerized go-to German equatorial mount. Its computer hand control can find and track any of the 40,000+ stars and objects in its database. It has all the optical performance you need for “big picture” visual observing. In addition, a very full roster of accessories let you get into astrophotography, solar observing, terrestrial observing and more. It’s a very flexible big aperture go-to telescope at a very reasonable price.
Supplied Accessories


Multicoated 8” f/10 optics; 1.25” 25mm E-LUX eyepiece (81x); 1.25” star diagonal; 1.25” visual back; 6 x 30mm straight-through finderscope; heavy duty CG-5 computerized German equatorial mount with setting circles, manual slow motion controls, adjustable height steel tripod, accessory tray, and dual-axis DC slewing/tracking drives; computer hand control with 40,000+ star and object database; TheSky Level 1 star-charting software CD-ROM.

Vote Highlights Vote
Celestron C8S-GT
I've owned over 80 scopes and 60 mounts to date, and have owned the C8XLT with advanced series mount for about 3 years now.
My C8 OTA sample star tests a definate 1/8th wave, and gives incredible images. Images of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn easily match, and in many cases surpass the performance of my MN66 (which I later sold). The focuser is smooth, with no flop, and just the right amount of resistance with nearly non-existant image shift during focusing. The XLT coatings give the 8" tube a noticeable increase in light thruput, which brings it so close to a C9.25 Starbright model in brightness of images, that the C9 was also sold. I have tryed out about 12 new gray tube Celestron SCTs so far, 6 of which were owned, all have had EXCELLENT star tests with excellent images.
This OTA is so good, that a friend of mine, who actually hates SCTs in general, is now in the market for a gray tube C8.

The Advanced Series Go To mount is very smooth and with the new heavy duty 2" tripod, will hold a C11 quite well for up to moderatly high power viewing. These new G5s are heads and tails over the older models. Much better fit and finish. Sturdy, stainless steel tripods. The Chinese have improved their quality control to the point that the new equipment is closing in on vixen type quality. After a typical learning curve, these mounts (I've owned 3 now) are very accurate and reliable. They are not perfect however, NO go to is, but no worse than the Takahashi or Losmandy Go To mounts I've owned in the past. They are a bit noisy when slewing, but, for the price, you can't beat the performance. I give this setup a 10 only because it really performs almost flawlessly, and has become the primary instrument for observing over all my other scopes.
In fact, all the expensive stuff is gone now. The Taks, APs, Intes', Intes Micros, and the like are now replaced. It's hard to justify keeping a 4 or 5K scope, when a 1k one does as good or better.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:10 Mount:8 Ease of Use:9 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=495395


Celestron C8S-GT
The OTA is great, but deserves a decent finderscope. The views I had with this scope were great.

The mount is another story. It's rigid, but the controls are hard to read when the letters are moving in the display (especially at cold weather). The first alignments performed were far off, but became better after some time, bust still aren't perfect. Also the mount is quite noisy during max. slew speed. But the mount does what it supposed to do. If properly alighned the objects were within 75% inner diameter of 30mm eyepiece.

Conclusion: great scope with good performing mount.

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:9 Mount:8 Ease of Use:8 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=445536


Celestron C8S-GT
I am very new to astronomy and this is my first scope. Although it did take me one and a half hours to set up the first night, because I was familiarising my self with the equipment, I still managed to get very good GO-TO accuracy and tracking. By the way I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, so no nice bright celestial pole markers for me.

And still do..... even though I break down the scope and pack away after every session. Fortunately it takes me a lot less time now to set up. I've learnt to "roughly" set up the scope before it gets dark.

I found that the key to enjoying consistent success with this scope (and I imagine with any other GO-TO scope) was to;

1. Read the manuals. Why do people find this so hard to do?

2. Repeat the above because you missed some things. We all do.

3. Have a reliable, fully charged, power supply.

4. Now here's the hard part.......take your time and follow the instructions to the letter.

I even managed to polar align my scope without a clear view of the South Celestial Pole, by knowing (reasonable accurately) where TRUE south was and what my latitude is.

I agree that the finder scope is pretty dismal. In fact practically useless on objects close to zenith, without a diagonal, and too small to comfortably view through otherwise. A Telrad would be better.

The motors are noisy at full slew, and because the diagonal doesn't have a stepped tube, it could easily fall out.

Overall, I think it's a great telescope/mount/tripod for the price. Even in Australian dollars. It certainly could be improved upon, but how much more will it cost me?

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:9 Mount:8 Ease of Use:8 Value:10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=351891


Celestron C8S-GT
Don't buy a SCT with a cheap goto equatorial as you'll regret it. Chinese mount and chinese quality. Major pain to align, 3 stars alignment with very far off - causes extra frustration due to small spotting scope. Celestron handcontroller is hard to read at night.

Overall Rating: 3
Optics:7 Mount:1 Ease of Use:3 Value:3
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=303431

Did you actually TRY this set up before your posting?  Yes, older CG5/EQ5 mounts on flimsy aluminum tripods don't cut it, but this seems like a review without even trying the new GoTo version.
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