NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TELESCOPE CF600PM MANUAL

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TELESCOPE CF600PM MANUAL

(Unlike our top pick, this telescope won’t automatically find the specific celestial bodies you seek.) One reason you may not want a manual telescope: You have to collimate (align) the telescope’s mirrors, and if you aren’t aware this has to be done, it can be tedious or frustrating. If you don’t want an electronic GPS function, the Astronomers Without Borders OneSky Reflector Telescope offers the most scope for the money. So you should have no problem packing it into a trunk and setting it up on location. This scope weighs 15 pounds, making it very portable relative to other options out there. Unlike with some of the NexStar 5SE’s competitors, this controller worked flawlessly in our tests, offering micro adjustments and responsive tracking with the attached controller system. Instead of fumbling to read star charts and align the telescope manually, with the press of a button you can align and focus your telescope on a myriad of celestial objects. The NexStar 5SE operates on a fully computerized system and gives you a handheld controller to guide it. And it provides sufficient power to introduce you to objects in the deep sky. This telescope has a primary 5-inch mirror-big enough for a light-gathering capacity that yields crisp images of some of the best objects in our solar system, from Saturn’s rings to Jupiter’s cloud bands.

The Celestron NexStar 5SE-our pick for the best amateur telescope-is a Schmidt-Cassegrain scope, which means it uses both lenses and mirrors in a relatively compact package.

National geographic telescope cf600pm