so why the Nexstar 6 SE ?

I originally had bought a Meade LX-10 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope in 1998. This scope has great optics but was very heavy, since i had opted for the Meade heavy field tripod and not the regular one. I updated the scope with a crayford focuser in 1999, a heated dew cap from Astrozap.com in 2002 and a Meade Magellan 1 astrocomputer in 2005. I added the astrocumputer because it took me longer and longer to find certain objects in the sky but i did not feel like buying a whole new telescope.

For the last couple of years i found myself less and less wanting to always lug the whole telescope and tripod out onto the garage, so i finally decided to sell the LX-10 on ebay. After only a week, the telescope was sold. Oh boy - so now i had to figure out which telescope to get. Over the years i had always marveled at those ads from Meade or Celestron with their cool GOTO scopes.

So i started to read tons and tons of reviews on the internet about current GOTO telescopes. Maybe someone at Meade or Celestron might have noticed a sudden spike in google search terms for "meade ETX" or "Nexstar SE". I also looked at Meade's brand new LS series with integrated (!) CCD camera, but although it would probably be a very cool telescope, the price was just not in my ballpark. I finally decided that my new telescope should meet the following criteria:

1. it should be alot lighter than the old LX-10
   
2. it should have full GOTO capability
3. it should have a maximum aperture of 6 inches
4. it should be possible to attach my new panasonic Lumix G1 camera for very basic planetary as well as astrophotography
5. it would be great if i could still use my crayford focuser
6. the price should be around 1000 swiss francs / approx 950 USD

After reading alot of reviews, it was down to the Meade ETX 125 and the Celestron Nexstar 5SE or 6SE. Since i had already owned a product from Meade, i decided that i'd go with Celestron this time. And i have to admit, i thought that the Nexstar SE series with the single fork arm mount with the integrated hand controller really looked so cool ! I'm a gadget freak after all....

The fact that the 6SE comes with a better/heavier tripod and it's larger size compared to the 5" version while still being very portable, finally had me decide on the Nexstar 6SE. The next weeks and months will show if it was a good decision or not...

Telescope prices are ridiculously high in Switzerland. I found an online store in Germany called "teleskop-express", which had by far the best prices and seemed to really know what they're doing. I even got a special bundle offer.

So here i am waiting for the UPS van to arrive....

Addition January 18th 2010: I've now used the telescope for the last couple of months and can now say that it's a superb telescope for visual work. If you plan to do any long exposure astrophotography, then you need an equatorial mount. Celestron offers one called CG-5 and one that is more expensive called CGEM.

Right now the alt-azm mount that my 6SE offers will be great for visual and short exposure work, and that's all i trust myself with right now. But i can already see that should i want to get into serious photography, then a different mount is a must.