NexStar SE Range
Celestron's NexStar SE range is a real success story. The company have come up with a functional and elegant design at a price that represents excellent value for money. Easy alignment with simple controls to find and track many thousands of objects automatically make it ideal for beginners as well as serious observers. The NexStar 4 SE uses Maksutov-Cassegrain optics making it particularly suitable for planets but it works well on deep-sky objects as well. This 4-inch telescope offers good views of a wide range of objects inculding many examples of all the different types such as planets, star clusters, binary stars, nebulae and galaxies. If your budget won't run to its bigger brothers, choose the NexStar 4 SE; you won't be disappointed. The NexStar 5 SE uses the same mount and tripod as the NexStar 4 SE but offers a larger aperture and Schmidt-Cassegrain optics. This makes it more suitable for deep-sky work. It has the same interface at the focal plane as Celestron's larger Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes so it will accept the same accessories. If you want to save a little weight and a little money over the NexStar 6 SE then choose the NexStar 5 SE. The NexStar 6 SE is our favourite and our best seller, possibly because our staff are so enthusiastic about it themselves. For a little extra cost you get an appreciable increase in light-gathering power. Although the tripod doesn't come with an option for equatorial mounting, it is sturdier and an optional wedge is available. In our opinion this is the best of a very good bunch of telescopes. The NexStar 8 SE is the largest in the range and offers a large aperture in a package that is easy for an average person to handle on their own. It is excellent for visual use but if you want to do serious astrophotography we recommend the CPC 800 or CGE 800. The tubes of all four models are mounted on dove-tail plates so can be removed easily and replaced with another tube such as a short-tube refractor, giving a wide-field option which is especially good for deep-sky imaging. | 
