Celestron Advanced Series C10-NGT

Great telescope for the price! – I have had my C-10 for about a year now, and I'm still enjoying it. I graduated from one of those (cool)little Astroscan scopes, so I had a bit of a learning curve. In other words, I didn't know my right-ascension from my left foot. I bought the scope used, with no manual, and had absolutely no idea how to assemble and use it. I downloaded the manual from the Celestron website and got to work. Not much to it, really. I mounted a Telrad finder to the tube. I even removed and cleaned the primary mirror, which was a snap. (NO mistakes allowed!)

The C-10 is bulky and heavy, and set-up is a bit of a chore, but after a few times, this gets pretty easy. (Good body mechanics!) The tube is a little heavy on the mount, so make sure you've balanced it before you start, to reduce strain on the gears. That being said, the mount is a workhorse and functions quite well. I took the scope to the desert last weekend and had Jupiter centered in the eyepiece under pretty good magnification when I decided to drive into town for a drink, a bite to eat, and some bad karaoke. I returned to the scope (still on) almost two hours later, looked in the eyepiece and lo and behold, Jupiter was completely gone!! Ha Ha! Just kidding. It was still centered there in the eyepiece! This was partly luck in achieving a good polar alignment, but demonstrates that this scope can track quite well. The focuser is stable, and accepts both 1-1/4" and 2" eyepieces. I invested in a couple of good quality 2" Baader eyepieces. What fun! Aligning the optics is quick and easy, especially using an inexpensive laser alignment tool that mounts like an eyepiece.

All in all, great scope with a lot of aperture for the money and the convenience of a go-to system for those of us who need a little help finding those little out of the way places. reliable, relatively inexpensive Bulky