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The 8SE is a fantastic scope, but should never have been designed as a battery-powered device. Do yourself a favor and purchase a 12V/2A AC/DC power supply or one of the battery packs that Celestron offers. When the 8 AA batteries fall below about 11.5V the scope no longer slews correctly and all sorts of bugs develop, which for a newbie makes learning the feature set very challenging.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
The telescope was advertised as being in "good" condition. I assumed that meant that it was operable. The computerized mount does not work. It simply displays an error message when powered on and any of the input buttons are pushed. This happens with both the included AC adapter and a Power Tank-type battery that I have. In addition, the objective lens has several small chips.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I purchased my Celestron NexStar 8 SE used from ebay, from a seller that claims to have only set it up and used it once, so you may use that info for what it's worth. My impressions, mostly made from my back yard about 15 miles South of Las Vegas are as follows: Optics: I really love the optics on this scope. The clarity and brilliance of the images were startlingly better than the 4 ½ inch refractor that I also have. I could see the blue color in Neptune, separation between the rings and planet on Saturn, equatorial bands on Jupiter (and 4 of the moons), polar ice on Mars and striking detail on our own Moon. The Orion Nebula almost jumps to life in this scope with an ominous greenish cast. Andromeda Galaxy looks like a ghostly-fuzzy elliptical disk. Double-Stars resolve beautifully in this scope. M35, M36, M37 & M38 are stunning. The Double Cluster is one of my favorite Star Clusters and is also beautiful with this scope. Darker skies are needed to resolve the Horse Head Nebula, etc. I also purchased a solar filter and the sunspots are interesting to look at. After using solar alignment and getting the sun to perfectly track, I decided to try an experiment. I had the scope slew to Mercury in the middle of a sunny day and then carefully removed the filter to not change the alignment. I could easily see Mercury, then Venus, then Jupiter all in the middle of a bright, clear, sunny day. I tried this again on a little hazier day and it was much more difficult to see the planets. I could only find Venus. If you try this, be very careful not to slew back through the sun with the solar filter off. You could blind yourself and fry your telescope. Motor Drives: The motor drives seem to have more "slop" in them than I would have imagined, which can cause you some grief if you do not take this into account. If you do the alignment setup by approaching the alignment star with the scope head traveling the same direction each time (I start each object in the upper left of the viewfinder and carefully move it down and right to the center and then hit align. Before I learned this by searching the internet, I had a hard time aligning and tracking objects. There is a learning curve here. I can see where a newbie would get frustrated and give up after a while. When set-up correctly, this scope will slew an object right to the center of the viewfinder with the standard 25mm eyepiece, and usually somewhere in the field of view with higher magnifications. The sky tour is also interesting to use, but has the same set of pre-programmed objects in it which makes it a little less interesting the more you use it. Overall I am very happy with my scope, but the things that I am less happy about have kept me from giving a 5-star rating. One is mentioned above with the "slop" or "play" that is in the gears when reversing from one direction to another. Another is the stability of the single arm… It vibrates for 8-10 seconds on high magnification if you bump it. Once you learn how to work around these issues, you will love using this scope like I do. I am considering purchasing a German Equatorial Mount to alleviate both of these issues, but more for photographic reasons than looking through with your eyes. Happy viewing and clear skies!Read full review
First of all, a review should be about the product, not about a bad buying experience. My telescope arrived in mint condition, no scratches ect.. on tube or tripod and collimation was excellent. The only problem was a small spring was missing for the tripod which was easily replaced. Scope set up was relatively easy. I must point out that reading and understanding the proper set up procedure is a must. My first attempts at go-to failed. After re-reading instructions, go-to and tracking was bang on. I actually left the scope for approximately 2 hours with it pointed at Saturn. When I returned, Saturn was still very near to the center of the eyepiece. I went from Saturn to Mars and it put Mars very close to center. Views through the scope exceeded my expectations, even with below average seeing conditions and light pollution. My eyepieces are just an average set of 4 element plossl's. I can only imagine the view through a Nagler. Saturn was crisp and clear even at higher magnification. The moons of Saturn were easily visible. Our moon was absolutely stunning. The biggest con with this scope, vibration while focusing. It takes 3-4 seconds to settle down between adjustments. I did manage to settle down this problem by setting the tripod up on a solid base, a concrete pad. I would suggest getting a set of vibration dampeners for the tripod. Overall, this is an excellent scope. I gave it a 4 out of 5 only because of the vibration issue. I would recommend this scope to anyone.Read full review
Optics and power of scope good, but support and instructions very disapointing. Tried several time to do simple 3 star align, but had to go with two known star alignment. Lots of accesories available. Purchase of a power supply a must, for use away from ac power source, as AA bateries don't last and low power affects performence. Tripod support average. Purchased of vibration pads helped somewhat with shakes. Lots of extras needed to improve performance so be prepard to spend more. Reccomend visting local astromeny club for help or opinion before purchase of scope.
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