EQUIPMENT REVIEWS

Celestron 90mm F/11 "First Scope" on CG3 Mount











I've recently bought this beautiful telescope from a fellow Cloudy Night's member, I don't have any regrets. It's has a shiny black finish with the traditional deep orange Celestron logo. It's roughly around 40" long and around 4" wide at the dew shield(lens is 3.5"). It came all origional. Origional diagonal, focuser, mount, red dot finder, and tripod. The reason I bought the telescope was to see how deep I could go with this small, but long instrument. I wasn't expecting to get hooked by the contrast and beauty of the optics!





First Light



As usual, It rained the whole day but unexpectantly, It cleared at 9:30pm that night. I was in shock! I immediately ran my new refractor and my 10" Coulter outside. Winds was a steady 10-12mph with gusts up to 20mph. The tripod didn't move an inch on my leveled concrete pad, Although the OTA did wobble some...but it wasn't anything to complain about. The transparency was excellent, Pitch black, M33 was visible with averted vision. I knew it was going to be a good night! So I popped in my 21mm Orion Stratus(Great 68 degree eyepiece with 20mm eye relief, 42x in 10" and 47x in the refractor) and gazed away. The very first object I chose was M57. It was cruising low in the west, So I wanted to snatch it before it dipped into the treeline. I first looked in my 10". The planetary was very bright and the stars were slightly on the fuzzy side. The background was a little lit up, a smidge on the grey side. As I looked into the refractor, It was completely the opposite! The planetary was bright, background was pitch black, and the stars were tack sharp! Annularity was alot more easily visible in the refractor then it was in the 10". I was very impressed! The refractor can really handle power well, M57 was incredible at 150x with my 6.7mm Meade 5000 UWA.

The next "test" I did was on the Double Cluster. In the 10" it was the same as it was with M57, The background was lit up some and the stars just wasn't as sharp and tight as the refractor. The refractor also shown off the colors alot better then the 10". The 10" produced the best views for faint galaxies, faint and small planetary nebulas, and globular clusters but the refractor has it beat for the planets, bright planetary nebulas, open clusters, and double stars.

I was out with this refractor for quite sometime and looked at many objects so this report would go on for quite sometime, but I want to keep this short and sweet. This refractor is a great performer and can go quite deep. With my skies, The Veil Nebula was no problem with an Orion Ultrablock Filter. The Crescent Nebula was also visible, but harder then the Veil. Another thing that amazes me about this small refractor is the views of bright planetary nebulas. The Blue Snowball was incredible at 150x! It had an easy blue hue with a white circle near center. I can see just as much detail as I would with my larger scopes! M42 was an eye popper, The nebulosity just exploded. The detail was just incredible for such small aperture, M78 nearby wasn't bad at all either.



Ups



I don't know where to start! This little refractor really has a mind of it's own, It's technically a bully! It doesn't act like a 3.5", It can easily compete with a 10" light bucket! The optics of this telescope is just amazing for it's kind. The CA is noticable, But nothing to fuss about, although I haven't viewed the moon yet(Hence, who cares about that chunk of rock anyway?). It gives mighty fine views of planets, like Saturn. You can easily see the main cassini division, bands, and Titan. Another cool thing about this scope is how it handles power. It can handle 150x like if it's nothing, I can barely notice any light loss. The views are so sharp, even at that high power!



Downs



Unfortunately pretty much every telescope has it's downs, including this one. The focuser on this scope is quite lazy. You can jiggle it up and down, doesn't exactly fit tight. The origional diagonal is quite cheap, It works fine...But it's just plastic. I've upgraded to an Orion diagonal(Few months after first light).



Short and sweet ending



This telescope is great, I totally recommend this to ANYONE who's new to the obsession or someone who's just looking for a fun "play" scope. What's very cool about it is that it comes with a handy red dot finder, so no need to worry about buying a telrad or an expensive spotting scope. This refractor easily blends in with my other telecopes, 14.5" F/6 Truss, 10" Odyssy Coulter, 127mm Starmax, 4.5" Newtonian, ETX-70, and a couple smaller refractors. The only thing I recommend on changing is the diagonal.