I bought this last year from Optics Planet. It is an amazing telescope. First off, it is HEAVY. I'm a 195 pound man who exercises and is fit, and it is still a beast to set up the tripod then carry the upper part to the tripod, place it in position and lock it down. The total weight of the entire scope is 97 pounds and most of that weight is in the Optical tube / dual fork arm assembly. Once that hard part is over, the fun begins.
It has built-in GPS, so it knows its location and the time. I use a Celestron PowerTank battery to run it. When I first got it, I would do a 2-Star alignment and be all-set for the nights observing. Being that I always want to get up-=and-running as quickly as possible with minimal effort, I went ahead and invested in the Celestron Starsense Camera, and now it can align itself in about 2-3 minutes. It is amazing.
This is my third Celestron telescope. I started with a Nexstar 8SE and then moved on to an older (used) C11 on a CG5-ASGT German Equatorial Mount (GEM). My son and I found that we liked the ease of set-up with an altitude - azimuth (Alt/Az) mount scope since we like visual observing, but we alike the optics of a big 11" Optical Tube Assembly (OTA).
This amazing behemoth combines the best of both worlds. It has the optics of an 11" (and improved with the Edge HD upgrade!) plus the convenience of an Alt/Az mount.
Celestron sells a heavy-duty wedge for this one for those who wish to use it for astrophotography.
Tracking and go-to...
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