[wachipilotes]

Hello,
I am looking for a scope for high magnification,shore birds observations,ducks,mainly.
I´ve seen a spotter Celestron C5 model that do not know if this may be useful for this, someone has used this scope for this work? could serve failing a Celestron C90 spotter?

greetings

[looksharp65]

Originally Posted by wachipilotes

Hello,
I am looking for a scope for high magnification,shore birds observations,ducks,mainly.
I´ve seen a spotter Celestron C5 model that do not know if this may be useful for this, someone has used this scope for this work? could serve failing a Celestron C90 spotter?

greetings

The C5 has an incredible resolution according to BVD. But it is quite likely to be over-kill, so to speak.
Within a year I will get myself a C90 Mak to extend my range, but I expect to use it in places where I don't have to lug it around. My Pentax 65mm is more suitable for that, but it does not perform very well at above 32x.

Unless you have "a room with a view" or you're very interested in astronomy, you should be fine with a C90 Mak. And that one is waterproof, too

http://www.betterviewdesired.com/Cat...ror-Scopes.php

Kind regards

//L

[gcole]

Originally Posted by wachipilotes

Hello,
I am looking for a scope for high magnification,shore birds observations,ducks,mainly.
I´ve seen a spotter Celestron C5 model that do not know if this may be useful for this, someone has used this scope for this work? could serve failing a Celestron C90 spotter?

greetings

HI ...... I bought one new . I sold the eyepiece & erecting prism that came with it and replaced them with a vixen eyepiece & a Williams optics erecting prism. The view was outstanding with the 25mm eyepiece which gave 50x power. Looking at distant fixed locations from a enclosed porch worked well ... use outside on moving shore birds might be a problem... the finder scope was useless. That being said ... you will not find a spotter that will give as good a view at 50x that the C5 does unless your willing to spend a few thousand dollars plus ..... gwen

[wachipilotes]

Hi,
Gwen, you use a erecting prism of 1.25" o 2"? Is maneageable this scope? Which mount(tripod and pan head) you use? Is the focuser knob harder to use for the position respect to visual back?


Thanks,

[gcole]

Originally Posted by wachipilotes

Hi,
Gwen, you use a erecting prism of 1.25" o 2"? Is maneageable this scope? Which mount(tripod and pan head) you use? Is the focuser knob harder to use for the position respect to visual back?


Thanks,

Hi ... I used it with a 1.25" prism. This scope is very compact, comes with a nice hard foamed case which is very easy to carry. I bought the celestrons heavy duty Alt- Azimuth tripod which I modified to give the up & down angle of movement a greater range. The tripod is rock solid with this scope & handles this scope very nicely, it is priced many places below $100 US. The focuse knob which is located on the back of the unit does not pose a problem with the visual back. I recently sold it to purchase a C6( just the tube) so I could modify the prism & eyepieces like I did with the C5 unit , I have found celestron's add on's work well but you can upgrade the view with a higher grade prism & eyepiece. Just sell the ones that came with it to offset that added cost ..... gwen

[rmel66]

How is the view through the C6?

[jogiba]

I have the C6 and a myriad of other scopes that I use when I need more aperture than my Pentax PF-80ED and Celestron Regal 100 F-ED spotting scopes. I use 60° 2" prism diagonals with wide 70-100° eyepieces like the Pentax 20mm XW and 17mm Ethos.
http://www.cloudynights.com/photopos...ype=&ppuser=17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJcI2uDOMCc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVB67azxBZg

[benm]

I evaluated one just last month. I replaced the Celestron diagonal with a Tele Vue 2" Everbrite mirror diagonal and an Ethos 13mm eyepiece.

The optics are low quality. It came with collimation about as good as I could get it myself but I wasn't satisfied with the amount of angular distortion and coma.

The Ethos 13 gives 103x but the same field of view as a 25mm plossl. This one eyepiece will do everything the scope is capable of all at once. I tried a shorter focal length but the aperture and optical quality just don't give any more.

The image was much superior to a 80mm spotter in the same price range as the C5 with the standard Celestron parts. For the price, you can only get refractors with very bad chromatic abberation which bothers me a lot. Compared to a Alpen 788 for example, the C5 is far better optically.

Where the C5 falls short is due to the large central obstruction from the secondary mirror, scatter across the schmidt corrector, and a low quality mirror (compared to something like a Questar). The standard prism is also low quality. The C5 I tried had the Starbright XLT coating, but I feel that throughput overall was low even with the TV diagonal. The large CO results in an area of open aperture equivalent to about 100mm, but I suspect scatter and the relatively low reflectivity of the objective mirror reduces the throughput to less than a Leica or Swarovski 80. The CO also reduces contrast and I found the instrument's resolution unimpressive. In theory, the aperture should give 1 arcsecond resolution, but that's just on paper.

Also, you're really limited to 50x-style fields of view because the image circle coming out of the back of the cassegrain configuration is fairly small and the focal length is something like 1350mm. The 1250 is in prime-focus with no diagonal. I had a 2" mirror on this, but I don't think you can use a field stop over about 22mm with it. It will probably vignette.

Another problem with the C5 is the large diameter of the OTA. It won't balance on a photo tripod at all, not without some kind of large counterweight. It needs a single or double-sided fork mount. I tried it with a Manfrotto 410 geared head but didn't like it. A Vixen Porta Mount II would be better. You really want to mount it so the altitude axis goes through the scope's center of gravity.

Do check one out. I don't mean to discourage you because for the price I don't know of something much better. For more money you can get better optics. I would check out Orion Optics UK for a 140mm Mak-Cass, Tele Vue, or one of the alpha spotters.

[DRodrigues]

benm there should be something wrong with the sample you tested or you are forgetting the resulting magnifications.

wachipilotes have a look at cr-telescopes on pt-ducks, specially at http://www.pt-ducks.com/cr-telescope...m%20telescopes
and at http://www.pt-ducks.com/cr-telescope...age%20erectors