Celestron NexStar 127SLT Maksutov-Cassegrain

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“I'm not professional, these are just my impressions.WARNING 1: this might be a begining of an expensive hobby! You will likely want accessories, filters, eyepieces, and maybe larger aperture for deep sky. Search for what you can see with a telescope (especially if you're interested in Nebulae/galaxies) if it's you first one to manage expectations.WARNING 2: you won't see details and colours you see in pictures online including mine (except maybe for Moon). Cameras are far more sensitive and have longer exposures than our eyes. Search Orion Nebula or M81 through a 5, 8, 10 inch telescope for example to have an idea and compare with pictures.Overall, I'm very happy with the telescope, optics seem quite good without noticeable chromatic aberrations, tracking is OK with options to fine-tune during use.After using this, I'm curious to try something with a larger aperture to see more details in deep sky, but it doesn't mean I'm enjoying this telescope any less. For me it hits a good balance of power, ease of use, and portability. Though 8-inch aperture ones would probably last you much longer if you're going to get into the hobby more seriously, those are much more expensive and heavy.You are paying a premium for goto functionality and compact design compared to some other 5-inch options, but I found goto to be very helpful especially at first.This vs a Dobsonian:Observing with a tripod is so much easier especially when what you're looking at is low. Optical tube is much more compact compared to Dob of comparable aperture and f-ratio, but later would probably be cheaper. As far as I can tell, a typical Newtonian reflector would be far less tolerant to collimation issues than this design. Learning with this is certainly easier.If it's your first telescope - be prepared you won't see the colours and details you see in pictures online. Those are captured with cameras with longer exposures and higher sensitivity than human eyes and are heavily processed. This being said, I got this picture of Orion Nebula with an old unmodified DSLR through this telescope in a single exposure, no stacking or additional hardware.What can you see?Moon - amazing! Very bright, very sharp clear small details, no weird colours.Planets - they appear about small pea-sized, rings of Saturn are clearly visible, as well as bands of Jupiter (in colour). You can get them bigger with additional eyepieces or Barlow lenses, but with ones I got (admittedly not the highest quality) I couldn't see more details - same thing just bigger and a little blurrier.Deep sky objects - probably the coolest thing to photograph, but visually seeing it for the first time it's amazing how dim those are in general. I could see Orion Nebula and some other DSOs. In Orion Nebula I could see general shape, but no colour when observing from Peak District. You can probably see more from a darker site, but I haven't tested it. Overall the aperture is considered small for visual DSO observation, but I could see something.Moon, snow, atmospheric conditions (e.g. turbulent air) will all affect your observation. Relative positions of earth to other planet also affects the details you see.Mount, focuser etc:I've read complaints about the mount not being sturdy enough online. It's definitely more shaky than a heavy Dobsonian, but for me it's perfectly useable. You do need to wait a couple seconds after adjusting focus for it to get stable, but you absolutely can get clear view and pictures after that.GoTo depends on how good your alignment is and has couple clever features - there is a "precision goto" option in the menu where it first navigates to nearby easy to see object for you to correct error and then it goes to actual target.Mount doesn't fold flat with optical tube as SE model does.The tripod is a bit bigger than a typical photo tripod when folded.If you're thinking of getting this and using mount for later optical tube upgrades, search for mount limits - you probably won't put much more onto it. I've read online people ignoring limits and putting 6se and even 8se on it, but it will be even shakier and I have no idea how long it will last if you did it and I doubt warranty will cover it.You need to align red dot finder and the telescope before observation, otherwise finding anything is very difficult.The mount is Alt-Az, as opposed to equatorial if it makes difference for you.”

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“As a novice to telescopes but not astronomy, this telescope is more bang for buck than you can imagine.Managed to attach my DSLR successfully and use the SkyAlign feature to capture the Moon and Venus in all their glory. Its a sizeable piece of kit and works better with a power cable rather than batteries.The tripod is great, solid and has a spirit level to help you ensure you have a level platform too.Definitely need to invest in some new eyepieces, but will do that later. Need to get accustomed and get the best out of what I have first. Best investment made and glad that I did!”