Celestron 6" Advanced VX Series Go-To Equatorial Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope

This Celestron AVX6SC telescope is a quality 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain on a robust go-to computerized German equatorial mount with features optimized for astrophotography. Big enough and good enough to do some serious imaging, but light enough to quickly set up and use anytime the urge to observe hits you.

This 6" Celestron AVX6SC Advanced Series Schmidt-Cassegrain is a great alternative to costly competitive 6" Maksutovs. It is priced $500 less than a competitive 6" go-to Mak that doesn't have the clear optical advantage of Celestron's state-of-the-art XLT multicoatings. Across the full photo/visual spectrum from 400nm to 750nm, independent laboratory tests show the new Starbright XLT coatings are 16% brighter than even Celestron's legendary original Starbright multicoatings - long the industry standard.

The go-to mount of this Celestron AVX6SC Advanced Series Schmidt-Cassegrain makes finding over 40,000 celestial objects easy and automatic, so you spend more of your time looking at and photographing celestial wonders, and less time looking for them.

This Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope works well visually from city and suburban sites, as its 6" aperture and f/10 focal ratio keeps moderately light-polluted sky backgrounds reasonably dark to avoid washing out faint nebula detail. As with any scope, however, transporting the Celestron AVX6S to a dark sky observing site will markedly improve its performance on broad, faint deep sky objects at low powers.

The 1500mm focal length of this Celestron makes it easy to achieve the high powers needed for detailed lunar and planetary observing. Simply add an optional Barlow lens, and/or additional optional higher power eyepieces, and this Celestron telescope will provide you with crisp and sharply detailed close-up views of the Moon and planets.

The scope's lightweight optical tube and easily assembled go-to mount make it quick to set up and enjoy - either in your back yard or at a distant dark sky site. Its superb optical quality and reasonable price for a go-to scope make it an excellent buy for the beginning and advanced astronomer alike.

This Celestron Telescope's Optical System . . .

Schmidt-Cassegrain optical tube: 6" aperture (1500mm focal length f/10) aluminum tube, 16" long, weighing 10 lbs. Guaranteed diffraction-limited optical performance. Celestron orange finish.

Starbright XLT full-multicoatings: This state-of-the-art coatings package includes high reflectivity multilayer aluminum mirrors enhanced with titanium dioxide for high reflectivity, plus a unique combination of magnesium fluoride and hafnium dioxide antireflection coatings on both sides of the Schmidt corrector lens. Starbright XLT multicoatings give you higher light transmission for brighter deep space images and shorter exposure times during photography. They also visibly increase the contrast on subtle lunar, planetary, and nebula details when compared with a scope with standard coatings or multicoatings.

A review of the 6" Celestron XLT optics in Sky & Telescope said of the XLT multicoating, "its effectiveness is readily apparent under certain lighting angles where the corrector virtually disappears, leaving the secondary seemingly suspended in midair." Of the optical quality, the review said "excellent optics . . . Saturn and its system of faint moons proved to be a good test of the C6's light grasp, resolution, and image contrast. With an 8mm eyepiece, the planet's crisp globe revealed delicate cloud banding rendered in faithful color, while the Cassini Division in the rings was obvious for its entire visible extent. Despite the moonlight and heavy local light pollution, 10th-magnitude Tethys, just 7 arcseconds from Saturn's northern limb, was easily seen with direct vision. Intra- and extra-focal image of stars revealed the C6 to smooth and very well corrected optics. For some additional information on the 6" XLT multicoatings, click on the link in the support tab above.

Finderscope: 6 x 30mm straight-through achromatic design, with a wide 7° field of view.

Focuser: internal moving mirror focusing. Pre-loaded ball-bearings support the focuser mechanism, rather than the bushings used on some competitive scopes. This minimizes image shift during focusing so no external rear cell electric focuser is needed.

Visual back: Removable 1.25" visual back holds visual and photographic accessories such as a star diagonal, tele-extender, off-axis guider, etc.

Star diagonal: 1.25" multicoated prism type.

Eyepiece: 1.25" 20mm Plössl (75x). The 0.66° field of the eyepiece is almost a third larger than the full Moon, for exciting views of globular star clusters and the smaller nebulas.

This Telescope's Mount . . .

Heavy duty Advanced VX Series computerized go-to German equatorial mount: This scope's new Advanced VX mount was specifically designed to provide optimum imaging performance for smaller telescopes (30 lbs and under). It has the imaging-friendly features of Celestron's larger telescope mounts, such as permanent periodic error correction (PPEC) and the ability to Image across the meridian without doing a meridian flip, so you can seamlessly image the best part of the night sky.

Experienced imagers will love taking this portable mount to a dark sky site (the head weighs only 17 lbs, the tripod only 18 lbs, plus one 11 lb counterweight), as it provides all the performance of Celestron's larger observatory mounts in a portable package. If you're new to imaging, the Advanced VX mount will help you get started with the hobby and keep up with your needs for years to come.

The mount includes dual-axis slewing/tracking low-cog DC servo motors with positioning encoders on each axis for go-to computer control. The new motors provide improved tracking performance and more power to handle an unbalanced load than previous Advanced Series drives. Built-in adjustable backlash compensation and permanent user-programmed periodic error correction (PPEC) permits precise corrections during astrophotography and when observing visually at high powers. The maximum slewing speed is a fast 4° per second.

The scope is supplied with a car battery cord to operate from the cigarette lighter plug of your car or from a rechargeable 12V battery pack. The mount requires a 12VDC 3.5A power source, so the Celestron 17 amp hour capacity Power Tank (#4517V) is recommended for extended use in the field. The Power Tank can be recharged hundreds of times and will operate the scope all night long without danger of running out of power. A Celestron AC adapter (#2338PRO) is also available to operate the scope from household AC in your back yard.

The sliding 11 pound counterweight is locked in place with a single hand-tighten thumbscrew, making it easy to rebalance the scope if you add heavy photographic accessories. The mount is easily capable of handling the scope and any reasonable combination of photographic accessories you might want to use. Snap-on covers keep the motor drives free from dust and debris. A set of optional vibration suppression pads (#4525) under the tripod feet will improve the telescope damping time for steadier high power observing.

To make a casual polar alignment for visual use quick and easy, there's a latitude scale and fine adjustment controls in both altitude and azimuth. The scope can be used over a wide 7° to 77° latitude range in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The scope includes Celestron's unique All-Star computerized polar alignment that lets you do an accurate polar alignment even when Polaris is hidden by trees or buildings.

NexStar+ computer hand control: The supplied NexStar+ computerized hand control has an internal clock and a built-in database of more than 40,000 stars and deep space/solar system objects it can find for you. These include the complete RNGC, Messier, Caldwell, IC,and Abell catalogs; selected SAO stars, such as variables and multiple star systems; the planets, the Moon, and more. There is enhanced information on over 200 of the most note-worthy objects.

You can also store and edit the right ascension and declination of 100 additional user-defined objects of your own choosing,such as the comet and asteroid coordinates published monthly in Astronomy and Sky & Telescope magazines. The computer control can find any of those objects with at your command, and accurately track them for visual or photographic application.

All of the database and telescope operation information is displayed on a double line, 16-character, liquid crystal display on the hand control. The NexStar+ hand control offers multiple language programming (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish). There are 19 fiber optic back-lit LED buttons to make it easy for you to control the computer without affecting your dark adapted vision. There are two AUX ports, an autoguider port, and anRS-232 communication port on the hand control that allows you to operate the telescope via a personal computer. The computer hand control software can be upgraded over the Internet from Celestron's website, assuring that you always have the most current software version at your command.

Several different alignment methods are built into the NexStar+ computer, allowing you to choose a level of computer accuracy in automatically finding objects with which you are comfortable. You can choose two-star align, quick align, one-star align, last alignment, or solar system align. Each of these computer-guided alignment methods is easily accomplished in only a few short minutes. You can be observing in less than 15 minutes after you first take your scope outdoors, including telescope assembly time.

In addition, the NexStar+ computer hand control is GPS-compatible (using an optional inexpensive SkySync GPS module) for full GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite accuracy. Adding GPS to the computer is something no competitive scope can do. With the Advanced VX Series go-to mount and the SkySync, orienting the scope in time and space on earth and aligning the scope on the sky becomes almost as easy as simply turning the scope on.

Adjustable height tripod: The tripod has 2" diameter steel legs with a center leg brace for rigidity, with excellent damping characteristics. The center leg brace is drilled to form a convenient accessory tray that holds 1.25" and 2" eyepiece to keep them up out of the dew-soaked grass.

Dovetail slide bar: An adjustable Vixen-style dovetail slide bar allows the optical tube to be quickly and precisely balanced fore and aft on the mount, eliminating the need for an extra counterweight to balance a camera or other accessories. Setup and takedown times are exceptionally fast,as a single large hand-tighten knob holds the optical tube in place. A second lock knob prevents the tube from sliding off the mount should the hand-tighten knob loosen.

Two-year warranty: All Celestron go-to telescopes have a two-year warranty.