Celestron NexStar 5

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Celestron NexStar 5
The Nexstar is capable of user collimation and if NOT using a long extension power cord, is able to track objects very well. I have the JMI Megapod which is very stable.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39802

Celestron NexStar 5
My first serious telescope after a Astroscan by Edmund Scientific.
Had it 3 weeks and returned it. Very frustrating using the computer, especially
below freezing. I talked to technical support and was told that
there is NO operating temperature range or a storage temp. range
with the assurance that it worked just fine in California! This
instrument is sold world wide and should include this information.
I found the pointing tube with the projected red LED dot easy to
use and accurate.
I set it up to track Jupiter, went to get my wife, and when I
returned in seconds the scope had slewed 45 degrees counter clock
wise. Very dissappointed!
The block diagram in the manual for the software is wrong for
the tracking and should be corrected.
The tripod is excellent and stable. Tracking motors are quiet.
Easy to transport.

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39806

Celestron NexStar 5
A wonderful GOTO scope. very simple to set up and use. Highly portable. Excellent mounting, very stable, almost vibration free. Smooth focus.

Minor disadvantage is that the software is a little limited (star catalog is not "friendly", and it will need a store return to upgrade).

Highly recommended.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39788

Celestron NexStar 5
Goto accuracy is not as good as I wanted to be, though I understand that this is dependent upon initial alignment. Other than the fact that it eats batteries, I love the tracting ability, the small size and quality of the OTA, and it's goto ability. I also wish they had done a better job of designing the OTA cover. It seems a bit cheap and hard to put on at times.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39808

Celestron NexStar 5
In one month, im on my 2nd NexStar 5, the first having runaway slewing problems. Celestron promptly replaced it within a few days. Their service has been excellent.

Great visual scope, not a good long-exposure astrophotography scope due to its spur-motor mount [i am told], although the optics could handle it. Performed well for short exposure photography.

Setup is amazingly fast, about 10 mins from setup, alignment, to slewing, providing it has adjusted to the temperature.

Overall perfect 10 on visual scope, 10 on portability, 10 on price, big goose eggs on photography.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39809

Celestron NexStar 5
Very reliable, great optics for the price and weight, and fantastic consistency when pointing

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39790

Celestron NexStar 5
So far have had very little trouble with scope. Star test after collimation is good. Brightness is what you might expect from a 5" scope. Motors track well & single arm for mount is extremely rigid.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39791

Celestron NexStar 5
Very stable mount, great optics (produces excellent Airy disk & diffraction pattern at high power). Computer pointing is excellent placing most objects in the field of view consistently. CONS: a few minor bugs in the software (can't store multiple site locations); very poor polar alignment routine (alt-az works great, however). Not as user friendly as Autostar computer - you must remember numbers rather than names. Large part of database is merely SAO stars, which are accessed by a random 'NexStar' number. Loose power connection.
All things considered, it's a fun, portable, easy to use visual scope.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39792

Celestron NexStar 5
Excellent value. Optics, Celestron tripod and Go-To feature are all of high quality and placing scope on plate is a breeze. Well thought out and reasonably complete package.
Initial problems with power port but spread split pin and this seemed to be the cure.I seem to have lucked out and purchased a latter version with the Moon in the planet database and far less "run-away" slewing problems than early versions(the latter does occasionally occur).
Carry case, couple of additional eyepieces, quality barlow, LPR filter, moon filter and a dew cap are all the extras you will really need beyond that supplied. Skip all astrophotography except piggyback. Recommended portable scope.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39794

Celestron NexStar 5
The go-to feature is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It even helps identify objects by locating first then, by using the hand held, looking up its position then, matching the position on the chart and identifying. The optics are great!!!

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39795

Celestron NexStar 5
Excellent scope. Brightness and star images - very good across fov. Tracking is also excellent - 2 star alignment - easy and fast to perform. Mount is excellent. Above all, scope is fun to use and an excellent value.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39796

Celestron NexStar 5
Great scope. Great combination of optical excellence on a stable mounting. Accurate go-to feature. Better F.O.V. than the Meade ETX. Stunning views with the rich-field adapter.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39797

Celestron NexStar 5
The perfect scope for the city-bound 2-nights-a-month amateur. Easy to transport to dark skies, quick to set up, and away you go with very nice views. I typically have maybe three hours of good sky/free time/opportunity (a magic combination) per month and this scope is perfect to maximize that time. After all, astronomy is a two-part hobby; finding and seeing. Use a manual scope with a Telrad and a good set of charts for finding - my XT8 Dob is a good example of this. But if you want to pack in as much as possible in your brief opportunity, let the Nexstar show you around. Fun fun fun.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39810

Celestron NexStar 5
Easy to align dead on goto once alligned. Very stable mounting and tripod. Very bright for a 5 and finder is superb love the little red dot. Best very portable scope I've ever seen. Apature is limiting but portability makes it so much more likely to be used that I can easily live with it's smaller apature. Very fine telescope.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39799

Celestron NexStar 5
Very good to excellent. Requires some periodic adjustment but overall is a great follow-on the C-5 family.

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39800

Celestron NexStar 5
After spending some time reasearching 8 & 5" SCT's, I decided on the Nexstar 5.
The issue of portability won out. I purchased it the day I left for vacation and had some great viewing with it. Scope well collimated out of the box. Dark skies of nothern Minnesota allowed viewing of Ring Nebula, Andromeda, Pleiades, Saturn, etc. I spent some time talking with a former owner of a Meade ETX 125, and he wasn't satisfied with the instability of the mount. The Nexstar is quite solid. I was able to compare the two side by side before purchasing. I'm having a riot with this thing. Glad to be back under the stars! After one night of practice, goto very simple to work.
10-3-2000

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39801

Celestron NexStar 5
Have owned for a little over a year. I saw more objects in the first 60 days than I seen with my SPC80 in 10 years. I'm no expert, but every star is looks the same on either side of focus, and every thing is perfectly round. Very good visual pointing accuracy and tracking! I use it on a Bogen 3036 with the Celstron vibe pads and it is stable, but not a rock. I wish I could update the software without sending the controller back to Celstron. If I had it to do over again, I would buy the same scope!

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39812

Celestron NexStar 5
This is my first scope. Personally im not one to settle for anything less than the best (aka Lx200 12") but, I thought it might be a good idea to learn my way around first before I jump into something with that steep of a price. My tastes have always been Deep Space Objects, not really into planetary. This is why I choose the 5", its aperature is enough to give me most if not all the Messier objects. One thing that i noticed right out of the box was that it was a pretty rugged and sturdy scope. I looked at the ETX 125, and that looks and feels like a cheap plastic toy compared to the nexstar 5. The moters are considerably softer compared to that of the ETX scopes. Also the scope was very well collimated right out of the box. Unfortunatly downtown Los Angeles has ALOT of light pollution, not to mention thats its been raining/cloudy for two weeks now, but even with all that going against me, I was able to see 3 bands on jupiter with a 10mm Generic Celestron eyepiece. I plan on getting an ALP filter as well as a nagler eyepiece and take this bad boy out to some darker skies. Im so pleased with Celestron that Im going to give there new Nexstar 11" a real hard look before I upgrade to a bigger aperature, cant wait to see the reviews on that.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39814

Celestron NexStar 5
Star test seemed to give some zonal error, but pretty identical diffraction pattern inside and out of focus. Brightness excellent. Tracking, once set up accurately, will track all night dead-center. If much slewing is used, it helps to re-align on stars closer to what your looking at as the night goes on. Every once in a while, it will loose its mind and disobey a slew command and go somewhere else. Well-crafted like the solid chunk of aluminum it is. It could use two things: a welded handle on the fork for easy carrying, and some manual slow-motion controls, which are more convenient to tweak than the motors for very fine movements at high power.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 3 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39815

Celestron NexStar 5
Great optics on mine. Poor backlash and dec slop. Very portable however. I liked the GOTO capability. Quite expensive for what you get. Look at the Meade LX90.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=39818

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