If you are a reader of TheAlienTech.com, then you already know that as a beginner you should not invest a lot of money in this hobby. Usually, as a beginner, you are not sure about the long-term pursuit of an astronomy hobby. In such a case, investing a lot of money in an expensive telescope does not make sense. But as a beginner, if you already know that you are very serious about astronomy, then there are some telescopes with which you cannot go wrong with your decision.
When you buy a basic beginner telescope, then there is a chance that very quickly you outgrow that telescope & you’ll be in the market again, looking for another bigger telescope. This way you end up spending more money. But, what if you buy an advanced telescope, which is beginner-friendly, can last you for years, and is difficult to outgrow? One such telescope is Celestron NexStar 6-SE. In this article, we’ll see the full details of this telescope.
Celestron NexStar 6SE
This is quite a popular telescope from the Celestron NexStar SE series. Cost wise this telescope is in the middle range. Performance-wise the telescope is in the top range. The biggest model in the SE series is an 8-inch telescope, but it is costly. So, this makes a 6-SE perfect telescope for its size and its value.
The telescope is designed for beginner to advanced levels of astronomers. It has an aperture of 6-inches around 150mm. The total weight of the telescope kit is 21lbs around 9.2kg. The weight is slightly on the heavier side but it will not be difficult to transport this telescope to various dark-sky locations.
When you are a beginner the biggest challenge you face is navigating through the night sky. This might kill the excitement of looking at different planets for new astronomers. With 6-SE you will not face that problem. This telescope has a computerized Go-To mount. With this mount, you can find any object you wish to look for in the night sky. This removes many challenges faced by beginners and improves the overall stargazing experience.
Performance of Celestron NexStar 6SE
One of the factors you should judge telescopes for is their optical performance. If you buy an expensive telescope and its optical performance is not good, then you will not get excellent results from that telescope. The purpose of a telescope is to collect as much light as possible. The amount of light gathered affects the brightness of the resulting image. Unfortunately, there are sources of light loss at each optical surface and within each lens. Every single optical surface in the Celestron NexStar 6SE is coated with StarBright XLT coatings which helps in maximum light throughput. You will not face any chromatic aberration or color fringing while using this telescope.
The mount and the tripod can dismantle into smaller pieces. The optical tube assembly of 6-SE is 16-inch long. It will perfectly fit into the overhead of an airplane. So you can carry this telescope easily during a vacation to a stargazing location.
This telescope comes with a single 25mm eyepiece. You will get 60 times magnification with this. The highest useful magnification of this telescope is 354 times and the lowest useful magnification is 21 times. For getting this highest magnification level you will need to buy different high-power eyepieces.
Celestron NexStar 6SE Mount
The mount comes with a single fork alt-azimuth mount. If you want to know more about different types of mounts then you should read this article. This mount has a database of 40,000 celestial objects. So, with this mount, you can locate any celestial object you wish to look for. One drawback of the mount is that it drains its battery very quickly. So you might want to consider buying an extra battery pack for the mount so that you can use the telescope without any interruptions during your stargazing night.
With this telescope, you can very well see the objects in our solar system. Observing many bright deep space objects will not be an issue with this telescope. With this telescope, you can perform astrophotography as well. But keep in mind this telescope is not for dedicated astrophotography purposes. If you want to observe the night sky and do astrophotography on the go then this is the telescope for you.
When you try to do long exposure photography on this telescope then you will get the star trails, as the mount is the alt-azimuth type mount. To understand this you need to know “How do different types of mount work?” If you want to do long-exposure astrophotography with this telescope, then you need to buy a wedge. It will convert this AZ mount to an equatorial mount.
What can you see?
The deep space objects you can see with this telescope are Orion Nebula, globular star cluster, sombrero galaxy, butterfly cluster, etc. If you have clear skies in your location then you might be able to see some faint deep space objects. For astrophotography, you can click multiple images of those faint distance objects and in post-processing; you will be able to see some details. But do not expect too much on this.
Conclusion
Overall the 6-SE is a great beginner-friendly telescope. It is completely suitable for beginners if you have a reasonable budget. Usually, basic beginner telescopes have some issues with many of the parts of the telescope, such as optics or mount or focusing issues. But these basic telescopes get the job done for the price you pay for. 6-SE is perfect for optics. The stability, sturdiness & weight carrying capacity of the 6-SE mount is excellent.
The only disadvantage of this telescope is the drainage of the battery which can be overcome with the extra battery pack. You will not outgrow this telescope anytime soon. This is one of the best telescopes you can buy on a moderate budget, which is also portable, beginner-friendly, and offers many features which make stargazing super fun and exciting.
We hope this article helped you to know the details of Celestron NexStar 6-SE. You can also find the best suitable telescope for you with our telescope suggestion tool.
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