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what about celestron c90 mak ? (1 Viewer)

Jacek Zarzycki said:
celestron c90 mak seems to be a good choice if refractor is not what yoy dream aobut :) . Does anybody uses that scope ? Is this scope worth to buy for birwatching ?
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G'day,

I have the Meade equivalent (ie ETX90) which I use as a stop-gap spotting scope until such time as I can afford a refractor for birding.

I'd recommend that you check:

Is the the field of view adequate?
Do lower power eye pieces (eg; 40mm) suffer from vignetting?
Does the secondary mirror's baffle glue fail in hot conditions?

Like the ETX, the C90 is optimised for astronomy and the use of the 45 degree erecting prism will offer a degraded view in comparison to the reversed image provided by the flip mirror. Futhermore, I'd suggest that Maks are somewhat more fragile than refractors.

If, like myself, you are equally intrested in astonomy these may not be significant issues. In that case, I'd suggest you also check out the Meade.

Peter aka Biggles
Sydney, OZ
 
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There are several posts on the forum that discuss this Celestron model. Do a search on 'Celestron' and you should get a lot more info.
 
One thing that I have learned it that with Maks the focal length limits the field of view at lower powers. The reason the C90 comes with a 38x eyepiece is that is the lowest magnification that shows the full available apparent field. Any eyepiece that is longer, lower magnification, will be stuck with the same actual field, so apparent field drops off quite a bit.
 
thanks a lot - I have already done search but information seemed not satisfactory to me . On the other hand - scope is most often needed for birdwatching on the sea beach or lakes and rivers or other kind of open space , where birds are distant . So I am not quite sure for what purpose low powers are neede im my scope ? Thanks for advises :)
 
Jacek Zarzycki said:
thanks a lot - I have already done search but information seemed not satisfactory to me . On the other hand - scope is most often needed for birdwatching on the sea beach or lakes and rivers or other kind of open space , where birds are distant . So I am not quite sure for what purpose low powers are neede im my scope ? Thanks for advises :)
Click to expand...

G'day,

The limited field of view offered by high powered eye pieces makes objects harder to find and/or track ... particularly in relatively featureless seascapes.

Peter aka Biggles
 
Yes it is nice to be able to aim the thing with a 20-25x, then pop in a 40x or higher (or merely twist your zoom) to get a closer look. If you can aim well the 38x should really hinder you any. Being born of an astronomical design it is altogether possible that Celestron has means to mount a small finder scope, usually a wide angle 6x or 8x by 30, which would help getting things going in the right direction so to speak.
 
Robert Ellis said:
Yes it is nice to be able to aim the thing with a 20-25x, then pop in a 40x or higher (or merely twist your zoom) to get a closer look. If you can aim well the 38x should really hinder you any. Being born of an astronomical design it is altogether possible that Celestron has means to mount a small finder scope, usually a wide angle 6x or 8x by 30, which would help getting things going in the right direction so to speak.
Click to expand...

G'day,

The Celestron page indicates that the C90 comes with a 8x21 finderscope. You should check the ergonomics of the finderscope if you intend to use the erecting prism ... you might find that you have to tilt your head to one side to avoid contact with the eye piece when sighting.

Celestron does offer a 8-24mm zoom eye piece (150X - 50X). I feel that the 50X is too higher minimum magnification for a single eye piece solution.

BTW: For birding and "whaling", I mainly use a 40mm eye peice along with erecting prism with my Meade ETX 90 which also gives aprox 30X.
 
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they have another finder scope too , and users in Poland say they change it , as the original one is not good enough . Hmm - now I ma puzzled what scope is the one that should be bought by me ... :)
 
You could also use a red dot sight to aim the scope, this is popular in astronomy nowadays as well. It can be fit to the Mak where the finderscope is without trouble.
 
Robert Ellis said:
You could also use a red dot sight to aim the scope, this is popular in astronomy nowadays as well. It can be fit to the Mak where the finderscope is without trouble.
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what is "red dot sight" ?
 
Red dot sights are from the shooting world. They have a small window in which a red dot is illuminated such that it "hovers" and always stays at the center, even if you eye in not exactly on center. Simple to use an accurate, but not magnified I think. You could find more from an outdoor or shooting gear supplier like cabelas.com over here.
 
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