A clear night!

Hi all,
After a bit of reading up, and looking at the budget etc, I bought the Celestron Nexstar 114 gt. I paid 300 euro for it incl delivery to my house. Then it was cloudy for 3 weeks... :roll: . Surprisingly, I still remembered quite a bit, and did a little summer triangle tour. The goto on the scope was quite accurate, bringing all of the items into the field of view of the 25mm ep.
I went to Albireo, m57, M32,M82, and tried them all with both eps. (a 10mm and 25mm). M57 was good, the 10mm bringing out a slight hint of colour, or at least it didnt look grey. The dark central patch was barely visible with averted vision. I visited it several times, spending quite a while trying to pick out detail. M32 showed up well in the 25mm, quite fuzzy but with a definite central brightness. The 10mm didnt work too well, it was difficult to focus properly. On to M82. It appeared in the fov straight away. Only thing was I didnt know if it was M82, or M81. Cloudy nights forum lads told me it was M82 (elongated one). I made an attempt to find M33, and M51, but neither showed up. I am only 10 miles north of Dublin, so the skies were not great.
I was not much impressed with the eps. The 25mm showed out of focus stars near the edges, and the 10mm was very difficult to focus. I think I am right in saying they are Kellners, and should I get Plossls?
I have my monthly star guide with me for tonight (hope its clear), so I can observe a bit more.
StephenK (steveirl on CN)

Hi all,
After a bit of reading up, and looking at the budget etc, I bought the Celestron Nexstar 114 gt. I paid 300 euro for it incl delivery to my house. The 10mm didnt work too well, it was difficult to focus properly. On to M82. It appeared in the fov straight away. Only thing was I didnt know if it was M82, or M81. Cloudy nights forum lads told me it was M82 (elongated one). I made an attempt to find M33, and M51, but neither showed up. I am only 10 miles north of Dublin, so the skies were not great. I was not much impressed with the eps. The 25mm showed out of focus stars near the edges, and the 10mm was very difficult to focus. I think I am right in saying they are Kellners, and should I get Plossls?
StephenK (steveirl on CN)

The eyepieces are Super Modified Achromats (SMA), basically wide angle Kellners and the included low power 25mm eyepiece may very well produce coma with this scope. Are the stars at the edge like little comets with tails or round blobs? At €300, you obviously bought the scope secondhand. The fact that the scope is not focusing properly with the 10mm suggests it may not be collimated properly so you will need to check this. The 114GT uses a push-pull screw arrangement on the primary cell. Plossl eyepieces should provide you with wider field-of-views and, assuming good collimation, improved contrast and sharpness. Go for good Plossls such as Tele Vue's range as Phil Harrington mentions that in his test of a 114GT, the 26mm TeleVue worked much better than generic Plossls.

M33 and M51 have low surface brightness and may very well be invisible with your scope from a light polluted site. You are not going to see spiral arms as in photos. Remember too that these galaxies are large and easily passed over without realising it.

Gordon

As is the case with many of the smaller telescopes, it is the eyepieces that let the scope down, a friend of mine in the club here got the lidl scope a number of months back and it gave some nice images, but as soon as he put on a decent eyepiece on, the image quality/sharpness increased noticeable.

Using a 95$ eyepiece (25mm televue plossel) on a 300 euro scope is reasonable. Using a 26mm Nagler is not (over 600$).

I bought the scope brand new in box from UK. I am now in the process of getting the Celestron ep and accessory kit for £79 + 15 delivery.
As we all know the net is full of deals. We all know how much the scope would have cost if I had bought it here. And the money I saved allows me to get some accessories.
Anyhow, if the skies ever clear, I will check out the new eps.
StephenK.