Nexstar 11 third hand?

Hi guys. Im about to buy a third hand nexstar 11" gps. Im a little bit nervious about it. I think its roughly 6 yoars old. I was gonna get a C11-SGT (XLT) from astronomy ireland which is 3800 euro but the N11 is considerably cheaper. Im going to see it but dont know a huge amount about SCT telescopes. According to the seller its working fine. Is 6 years old for this kind of telescope? Is there anything i should be looking for when i see it?

Thanks

Neil

Mikey - I dunno if its possible, but you'd be best seeing the kit 'live' if you can. Alternatively, ask the seller to submit pictures of all the necessary important bits. You'll hardly be able to see if its working but if you see dents, bad scuffs etc you'll know its been mishandled and *potentially* a lemon.

You can ask the vendor to send on images (if they can) taken *recently* with the setup to check out the optical quality.

As far as 6 years old goes, all you need to be wary of is deterioration of mirror coating. All coatings will deteriorate over time - but from what I've read, it can't be predicted as to when it will deteriorate beyond usefulness...

Also, find out why they are selling it...

I'm sure others here will provide other pointers.

Cheers

Dave

Compare prices on the c11 sgt from vendors in the UK. Draw up a list of who seels it, how much inc shipping.
As for the 3rd hand one, see it working is the best you can do.

Thanks Dave. Im going to see it in the morning and the guy said he has images taken using the scope. I suppose i could ask him for a test drive in the evening. He mentioned that the collimation screws were relplaced with nobs. Is that unusal? He also mentioned that the accuracy of the goto was out by 8 degrees or something. Is that normal?

Collimation knobs are a good thing - if they're well made and installed... They'll ease collimation. A nice-to-have.

GOTO out by 8 degrees... Hmmm. GOTO accuracy depends on a vairety of factors - alignment, levelling,orthogonality of the optical axis to the mount... That error will apply to where the scope is etup now. When you move it, it'll change. But then you'll be recalibrating everything when you move it - it could go worse but you can recover it...

If its a constant 8 degree error, ask him why. And ask him if its just down to misalignments as mentioned above. If so, you'll just have some calibration work to do. But that's half the fun

I't be nice to get over to him when is dark or gettting dark. Checks would be moon, a planet and bright/dim stars. If they look as good as or better than you're current scope, you're onto a winner!

If you can't get an evening's view, at least try and look at some distant terrestrial objects. I use a mast with an aircraft warning light on about 10km away. You may not be so lucky... Try bright objects far away if you can. At least that'll show up any gross errors...

HTH

Cheers

Dave

Hi,

After taking the other guys advice regarding testing this one if you still decide to get a new C11 then shop around. For example the C11-SGT XLT is £1999 from Green Witch. Even with shipping it would work out about €800 cheaper than AI. There might even be better deals available - that was just the first one I checked.

Green Witch link