Compare Review Evolution 8 Vs Nexstar 8 Se
Spring Straight to the Verdict
The Celestron Nexstar Development eight Computerised Telescope
The Celestron NexStar Development eight Computerised Cassegrain telescope is a large Schmidt Cassegrain. It's got a gaping 203.2mm (8″ aperture) and 2032mm focal length. Basically, it'due south a saucepan full of light. With these specifications, this telescope is capable of reaching high magnifications (480x highest practical magnification according to Celestron) suitable for viewing planets and deep sky objects.
To put this into perspective, in the box, you'll discover two eyepieces: a 40mm for wide field viewing (51x magnification) and a 13mm for closer views (156x magnification). These eyepieces provide a skilful foundation to explore the night sky. If you want to get the about out of your telescope and push it to its limit, y'all will want four.2mm eyepiece, which can be achieved using something similar a saxon Cielo 4.5mm eyepiece (you would get a magnification of 451 times). Alternatively, you could get a lower magnification eyepiece and add a barlow, such as a Celestron Omni Series 2x Barlow Lens (not included in the box).
The eyepiece I used for this evaluation was a medium length, at 20mm.
The Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8 Computerised Telescope comes with a single-fork fashion alt-azimuth mountain, which sits on a medium weight tripod. The mount is fully computerised and can exist controlled either by the supplied handbox / mitt controller, or by a smart device that connects via the mountain's built-in WiFi, using Celestron'due south SkyPortal app, bachelor in App Store or Google Play.
The Development mountain also features a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which will power the telescope all night. This is recharged using the provided power adapter.
The scope also comes with a red-dot type finderscope, called a StarPointer. The scope I got to exam was supplied with a StarPointer Pro, which is similar.
Market placement
Celestron'south Nexstar Evolution serial of Cassegrain telescopes is a step upward from the Nexstar SE serial. The NexStar 8SE has the same 8-inch (200mm) aperture.
In comparing to the SE series, the Evolution series includes WiFi connection to your smart device (IOS and Android), a heavier tripod, and the in-built lithium-ion battery. If y'all travel to remote locations with your scope, you lot volition find this battery is incredibly useful.
The Celestron NexStar Evolution eight is the big blood brother of the Evolution vi, existence the same apart from aperture.
If you wanted to spend a bit more, Celestron's CPC 925 has a bigger aperture over again, with a heavier double-fork mountain. However, the CPC 925 doesn't accept WiFi built in, and it also needs external power.
In that location is, in fact, an Evolution 925, which is similar again, although we would consider for the heavier tube that a double-fork mount of the CPC would give more stability and robustness.
| CELESTRON NEXSTAR SE SERIES | CELESTRON NEXSTAR Evolution SERIES | CELESTRON CPC Serial |
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Purpose and intended ability
Cassegrain telescopes take long focal lengths, which means they are really skilful at magnifying images. The downside of this is that the images tend to exist dim. This ways that the Celestron NexStar Evolution 8 is a specialist at pocket-size vivid things, like planets. If a planet is what you lot're subsequently, a Cassegrain is your first choice. For the same reason, the Celestron NexStar Evolution 8 is also actually expert at lunar shut-ups.
To requite y'all an idea of the abilities (and limitations) of the Celestron NexStar Evolution eight, I recommend the useful BBC Sky at Night Field of View Calculator website. This site indicates that with the supplied 10mm eyepiece, the Moon volition be about twice the size of the scope's field of vision. Alternatively, Saturn will be small in the field, but its rings will be conspicuously recognisable.
The verdict
A pleasant surprise
The Celestron NexStar Evolution eight is not traditionally a beginner's telescope, depending on your budget. It'south an impressive unit of measurement in all sorts of ways. It's big, it's powerful, it's piece of cake to use, and it's smart.
Offset, information technology'south a pretty big telescope. If it's sitting on its tripod in the corner of your lounge, information technology will dominate the room. For those who like to have their scope as a talking point, this ane does the chore.
Second, it's got a long focal length, which is typical of the Schmidt-Cassegrain configuration. The Evolution viii′ focal length is 2032, which is frighteningly large compared to my wide-field refractor's 560mm. That gives you, for the same eyepiece, a very big corporeality of magnification, but I constitute that the stars looked pretty crisp across the whole field. This shows that the optics are a very high quality.
The market place placement of the Celestron NexStar Evolution eight certainly doesn't make it a starter scope, but I plant information technology surprisingly easy to use, despite its premium toll point and capabilities. My rig is a refractor, and it sits atop an autoguided NEQ6 equatorial mountain that demands exquisitely precise polar alignment. I draw it equally like driving an MG – cute, when it works. In contrast, a total beginner could use the Celestron NexStar Evolution viii.
What's more, before I got to evaluate this scope, my but deep feel with a Cassegrain was a Meade LX6. This is a lot smaller than the Celestron NexStar Evolution eight, and the telescope'due south mount gave me quite a few issues with software and prepare-up. Eventually, I take to say, Meade and I solved the issues and it became a useful scope.
These experiences had given me the impression that if yous want a loftier-end outcome, you lot need to put in heaps of effort. Only I was wrong. I was able to put it together apace, the Celestron SkyPortal iPhone app worked, the alignment took only a few minutes, and I was off and observing.
Ease of use
While there'due south apparently going to be a learning curve, this thing is not hard to use. You lot don't need to know the stars, it's piece of cake to align, and you don't need to be muscle-bound. You lot don't even need to know what yous want to see – the scope will take you on a tour!
It's a go-to
The biggest development in amateur astronomy in the by few decades has been the go-to mountain. This really has revolutionised back-yard observation. Previously, to notice things you had to use a paper map and "star hop" from a bright star to dim star, to dimmer star, before eventually finding the right spot. It took ages, and more oft then non you'd get lost and have to start again. Believe me, it's tedious. These days, all you have to do is enquire the Celestron NexStar Development eight to show you something and it moves right in that location itself.
Star alignment
The Evolution series is on an alt-az mountain (as against an equatorial mount), which is perfect for visual observers. It's much easier to use and quicker to set up, and y'all don't need to do that horrible polar alignment stuff.
All go-to computerised telescopes from all brands demand "star alignment" before an observation session. This is different to a polar alignment, and tells the Celestron NexStar Development 8 where the stars are. You'll need to become through this procedure (unless you've optioned it up with a StarSense auto-aligner) and you'll have to help it along – a bit.
The pleasant surprise, though, is the Celestron star alignment is excellent. You simply slew to any three bright stars, make sure they're in the middle of the eyepiece field and printing "marshal". That'southward right – you don't need to know the names of the stars. The Celestron software is clever enough to determine from here where the stars in the heaven are. In this, the Celestron software is ahead of its rival, the SynScan technology, which nominates stars it wants you to slew to.
I'll write a separate weblog on how to align a Celestron NexStar.When I do that, I'll put in a link here.
Weight and portability
The Celestron NexStar Evolution 8 separates into iii bones units, the tripod, the mount and the telescope itself (there'due south a film of these main bits above).
Over again, my experiences with my NEQ6 prejudiced me, and then I was expecting some heavy lifting. Just none of these parts are besides heavy to lift.
The heaviest function is the mount. Celestron has really improved the ergonomics here, and put handles on the fork (that'south the upright fleck) and the tray.
The tube isn't terribly heavy either, but information technology really could do with handles somewhere, similar on the newer C8 tubes. Attaching the tube to the mount when the mountain is up on the tripod can be awkward, especially if the the tube has a finderscope. There's nowhere to deeply hold the tube, and you end up cradling it like a baby. Information technology's actually something you lot wouldn't want to drib!
The Celestron NexStar Development eight isn't so large that it'due south hard to move around. I drive a pocket-size auto (a VW Polo) and the tube fits easily into the motel (I put information technology on a seat with a seatbelt around it). I put the tripod legs on the floor behind the commuter'southward seat, and chucked the mountain into the boot. It's certainly more portable than my refractor and its NEQ6 mount and tripod legs.
The other proficient thing about it beingness not-also-heavy is that you tin can move it around your back thousand if what you lot're looking at wanders behind a tree. Of form, moving the scope will confuse the mount, and so you have to disconnect and re-marshal when you exercise this. Compare this to my big heavy NEQ6 with its refractor, cameras, autoguider, autofocus and counterweights – one time information technology's down it ain't moving.
Optics
I found the optics of the Nexstar Evolution 8 to be very good indeed. Light gathering is excellent (as yous'd expect from an 8-inch aperture), and the Evolution series' StarBright XLT coatings requite it an added level of quality over the SE series.
I took the scope out to the nighttime sky site in January, so there were a few objects in the north eastward bachelor for me to look at. Unfortunately the "seeing" was poor, every bit it had been a hot twenty-four hour period and the atmosphere was very unstable. The Moon was just past full, meaning I had a couple of hours of viewing before it rose and blotted out much of what I was looking at.
Visual work
Through the scope, the Pleiades were larger than the field of vision (I was using a 25mm eyepiece and didn't take a 40mm). The stars were clear, and the view was nice and contrasty, indicating picayune dispersion of light. At the edges, I couldn't detect any coma or color fringing, indicating high-quality optics. I didn't encounter any nebulosity around the stars, but you'd probably have to have a much larger aperture to run into that.
When I looked at the Orion Nebula I was in for a treat. The nebula was large, as bright as you lot would expect for a full moon, and I could come across a lot of detail. The magnification of the Nexstar Evolution 8 is such that you can hands see all iv stars of the quadrilateral at the core of the nebula well separated. This is a adept test of a scope, and ane which Nexstar Evolution 8 passed hands.
Finally, and with a trivial anticipation, I slewed the scope at the Moon. I'd never looked at the Moon through an 8-inch instrument before and I didn't have a filter. Ouch. It was as brilliant as I'd expected, but very clear and contrasty. I was mostly trying to photograph the Moon (run across below), and really hadn't expected to look at it. The scope has so much low-cal gathering that I was really able to run across a well-focused image of the Moon on my mitt. The telescopic was interim like a projector, showing craters on my palm.
DSLR photography
After looking through the telescope for a while I fastened a DSLR. I take a Pentax K3-II, but Nikon and Canon (and other DSLRs) attach in the same way. Celestron besides sell a t-adapter for the telescope tube, which can be used to connect your DSLR to your telescope. This screws on to the rear of the tube, replacing the visual back, diagonal and eyepiece. The t-ring for the DSLR screws to the adapter and the DSLR clips onto the t-ring just like whatsoever other photographic camera lens.
Using my DSLR without whatsoever lens apart from the scope itself, I found that I wasn't able to become the whole of the moon into 1 shot.
If I wanted to go a photo of the whole Moon I would have had to take 4 images, and sew them together afterward (I use Microsoft Water ice, which is free).
Next, I had a rough go at M42, the Great Nebula in Orion. It's a favourite test subject at this time of twelvemonth. I took 100 exposures of 5 seconds each and ISO 1600, and stacked them (without calibration shots) in Deep Sky Stacker. More time on finessing both the original photo (fiddling with exposures, tracking, etc.) would improve this, as would more than time with mail-processing (with amend calibration, etc.). But this gives you lot an idea every bit to what the telescope is capable of.
CCD photography
The last thing I wanted to test on this telescope is how well it worked with an astronomical sensor. The 1 I was using was the Orion Starshoot 5MP, which connects through a USB cable to a laptop. The Starshoot 5MP has a pocket-sized sensor, making it useful for very minor targets such as planets.
To photograph the Moon, I recorded a movie through the scope. This gave me about thou frames at 640×480 resolution. I processed the images using PIPP and then Registax and produced this. Visual observation was poor on the night due to the the in the atmosphere and I was surprised that I got this.
Afterward in the evening (at almost 4am) Jupiter rose. This gave me only a short time before the sunday rose. I used the same technique that I'd used for the Moon, and got this pocket-sized image. Information technology's not a keen photo, but this does non reflect on the scope, but rather the poor seeing conditions at the time. If nothing else, it highlights how small and bright planets are!
In order to become a larger image, I would need some additional magnification. This could include a Barlow or an eyepiece projection system. Information technology gives me something to aim for.
Mount
The combination mount and tripod is a expert enough size. It'd be perfect for the smaller Evolution half dozen. If it were smaller and it might not be stable enough for the larger Evolution eight. This is the reason why I wouldn't recommend Celestron's Development 925, information technology'southward probably too large for the supplied mountain.
The mount is heavy and stable enough with the Evolution viii. It withstood a bump without having to re-aim the telescope. In my case, there were two specific bumps. The impuissant nose standoff against the eyepiece was a normal affair. The Labrador tail standoff with a tripod leg was a little more unusual. (I never thought I'd stop upward writing that in my career, but our dog is very waggy.)
The tripod legs, similar all I've come across, have points on the ends. These sunk into my garden a little unevenly, stuffing upwardly the level. I take 3 bricks set into my lawn for my own scope, and I was able to adjust the tripod then that it used these. I think supplying some sort of pad, similar vibration suppression pads, would help here.
Another matter that would ameliorate the tripod legs would be double locking screws for the extensions. It wasn't long ago that I saw the aftermath of a leg extension screw declining. Information technology wasn't pretty.
Clearance
The larger Celestron alt-az setups have always had a trouble with clearance. Just with the diagonal and an eyepiece, I tin await an a target at zenith. I can even practise it with a DSLR on the visual back. However, with the tube counterbalanced correctly, the front of the tube has to exist a long style forrad. This means it crashes into the tray when pointing downward. Clearly you're non going to be observing anything below the horizon. All the same, my experience with the Meade gave me a habit of parking a Cassegrain scope objective-downward.
Software and control
You tin command the telescopic in 2 ways. You can use the handbox that is supplied with the telescopic, or the Celestron SkyPortal iPhone app. I didn't go to play with the handbox, so this is going to exist all virtually the app.
I practice like the Celestron SkyPortal iPhone app. As I mentioned above, you don't need to know the names of stars you're going to align on. This is a big advantage over its major competitor, SynScan. The SkyPortal app also shows a map of the stars. You can slew from this user interface by touching a star or planet and touch on "goto". Again, with SynScan, yous need to select your target past proper name. If you meet a star y'all want to signal the telescope at, but don't know its proper noun, it tin can go complicated. This is fifty-fifty more complicated if there's another star not far from your target. To be fair, the SynScan tin can get around this, simply that's a unlike web log…
When I slewed to a target using the go-to function, the telescope moved reasonably accurately. By that, I mean information technology put my targets into the eyepiece. While I didn't use the feature, y'all can add alignments to brand slewing even more accurate.
The iPhone app provides four slewing rates so you can move the scope around. I didn't notice I needed the slowest rate. This is the charge per unit that might be used for actually fine adjustments. These are useful when you're touring the Moon or locking onto Saturn with the highest magnification. The fastest slewing rate took mayhap 30 seconds to move the scope all the style around. While I'g patient enough, if you've got a child with you, information technology might exist a flake long.
The app (similar all of them) has a "night" setting that turns the screen monochrome red. This prevents the phone screen from dazzling you. Notwithstanding, fifty-fifty with the ruby screen, I did observe it was hard to slew the mount to center the stars. I found I had to look abroad from the eyepiece to figure out which push to touch. I don't know about programming phone apps, merely a swipe might be more user-friendly. This would allow you to hold your finger on the phone while looking into the eyepiece. Sliding your finger around could adjust the mount without having to find different buttons.
I minor irritation nearly the SkyPortal app is its US centricity. Every photo (but one) in the app I found was somehow to do with the The states. Either it was the Globe – with North America prominent, or was of a feature within the USA. The exception was a photo of Mount Everest. Not a serious gripe, of course, simply there are other countries in the earth, y'all know.
Backlash in slewing
Backfire in slewing was a flake of an irritation. All mounts take backlash, or the gears would grind and seize. When I slewed to the left or right, there was quite a delay before I saw whatever motility in the eyepiece. The filibuster was just a few seconds, simply I thought the clutch must have been unlocked.
The Celestron NexStar Development eight app has a setting for backlash compensation for both axes. I didn't look into these, and and then I can't describe how it works or hoe constructive it is. I'll leave it to telescope owners to investigate this themselves.
Tracking
The mount I evaluated didn't take perfect tracking. Equally a test, I took a series of ten second exposures on the Orion Nebula. These showed how the telescopic tracked over about 45 minutes. The time-lapse is on the Eyes Central YouTube aqueduct.
At the outset, the quadrilateral in the Nebula started in the heart of the field. But at the cease of the time-lapse, it'd wandered off to the left and had near left the frame. You might be able to adjust information technology in one of the advanced settings, but the rate the mount came with wasn't fast enough.
Clearly an autoguider (such as the Celestron Nexguide, possibly the Sky-Watcher Synguider, or another autoguiding system) volition solve this problem. At actress expense, of form. Await, if it takes that long for your target to drift away, it's not a huge problem.
Apart from tracking errors, the alt-az mountain makes the scope unsuitable for long-flow astrophotography. Exposures of 20 minutes would suffer badly from field rotation. If you desire to take astrophotographs, this is not the mount for you. Rather than the NexStar mounts, I'd be recommending an equatorial mount such every bit the Celestron Advanced VX for long-exposure astrophotography.
Bill is Optics Cardinal'southward expert on astrophotography, telescopes and bird watching. Y'all'll find him in the Mitcham shop on Fridays and Saturdays. Come in for advice on how to get the best out of your current telescope, what your next telescope should be, how to take photos of the sky, or even how to encounter some rare birds.
Source: https://www.opticscentral.com.au/blog/celestron-nexstar-evolution-8-product-review/