About a week back, the NexStar 4SE that I ordered arrived. I've been quite eager to test it out in the field but however so far been unsuccessful due to bad weather. But the first impressions so far have been good. Here's a short review on the 4SE compared to the 114EQ.
Out of the box:
Everything was neatly packed in one single box. Assembling the telescope was very easy, the entire set was only four pieces or so. There is no way you could get it wrong.
The batteries for the controller of the telescope are not included (8 AA batteries). The battery for the spotting scope (CR2032) was included, but had already drained.
Tripod Assembly:
The tripod mount of the 4SE is made out of steel. This is not a major change from the tripod of the 114EQ, but does differ in one aspect. The feet/base of the tripod of the 4SE consists of rubber bushes instead of the plastic base of 114EQ. This somewhat absorbs vibrations and would allow a better photographic experience.
The plastic mount support for 114EQ is known to have some problems when it comes to robustness. There are several reports online where the plastic mount support has broken off making the tripod unusable. The mount support for 4SE on the other hand, is metal and of a slightly different design and would have a longer life time.
Optics:The very first thing that I felt when I tried out the telescope in the field was the amazing clarity. This probably comes of the better quality of optics, but when concerned about for usage over time, the design also helps. While the 114EQ is a true newtonian, the 4SE is a Mak-Cas. The optical tube of the 114EQ is open to the outside environment where as the optical tube of the 4SE is sealed with a clear glass front. So lesser damage on the main optics due to dust.
The focal length of the 4SE is 1325mm compared to 1000mm of the 114EQ. This means that I would get about a 30% more "zoom" on the 4SE compared to the 114EQ. This usually is good unless you are planning to shoot something that spreads across a vast area (like the Andromeda galaxy).
There are however, short comings of the 4SE. While the 114EQ has a diameter of 114mm, the 4SE has a diameter of only 102mm. This 12mm difference leads to about a 20% lower light gathering power (i.e. surface area) of the 4SE compared to the 114EQ. While for normal viewing this would be ok, for astrophotography, this does not work very well. At the least it means that the exposure time has to be 20% more. This means more photos, more stacking and more post-processing (and well the reduced life time of the camera due to more shutter counts - but I'm not really bothered about that).
Below are two photos shot from the 4SE and 114EQ for comparison. The two shots are only about a minute apart.
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| Celestron NexStar 4SE |
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| Celestron 114EQ |
The photo from 4SE is much clearer and larger than the 114EQ (try enlarging them and reading the red lettering on the antennae) but is also darker. Note anything odd about the two photographs? Yeah, but that's a different post altogether.
Portability
Weight:
The first thing that I felt when I unpacked thetelescopes was that the 4SE weighs less than the 114EQ, but it is not the case. The 4SE actually weighs about 1kg more (a total of about 10kgs) than the 114EQ. I think the apparent lightness is to do with the weight distribution.
The 114EQ comes with almost 2kg of counterweights to balance the optical tube. The tube of 4SE is much more compact and lighter than the 114EQ. Due to the lack of counterweights the whole telescope assembly is compact and easier to handle. Do take note however, not to knock the computer controlled arm/motor drive when moving.
Tripod:
On the portability side, the tripod it self of the 114EQ scores more than the 4SE. The tripod of the 114EQ is like a camera tripod, the accessory tray can be just removed and you can fold it up. However the 4SE requires a bit more work; the accessory tray is screwed in to place and has to be unscrewed to remove. Note that there is a spring between the accessory tray and the screw, be especially careful if you are doing this out in the open.
Optical Tube:
The optical tubes of both telescopes are easy to remove, nothing much different on that front except for the actual mechanism; the 4SE has a quick release clip/screw and the 114EQ has two screws. If you are removing the optical tube of the 4SE, make sure you hold the tube securely when you are unscrewing the quick release; it really is a quick release and the tube can fall off if you are not careful.
Response and Automatic Control
Unfortunately I haven't had much time to try out this owing to bad weather. The little occasions I tried, it seems to be working very well. The spotterscope/finderscope also works pretty well (compared to that of the 114EQ, which is pretty useless).
I did come across some occasions where it could not really point to the proper star and it was not tracking the objects once pointed. I have a feeling that the first problem is due to the errors in initial calibrations (you are supposed to choose stars which are as distant to each other as possible) and the latter is due to some setting that I have overlooked.
The optical tube assembly of the 4SE is much more sturdier than the 114EQ. On the 114EQ, I always had to put the camera on a 10 second timer because if I by any chance click the shoot button by hand, that vibration stays long enough to distort the photo. The assembly of 114EQ is also pretty large which means it catches more wind than the 4SE. As far as manual controls go, the 4SE still is the winner; I could never get the 114EQ screw type controllers to point where I wanted, you start moving in an anti-clockwise direction, the controller knob comes off! No such problems with the 4SE, its just a button press and you can control really small movements without jerking the telescope.
You can see the automated controls/tracking of NexStar 4SE in the video below (sorry about the video quality though!)
So that's it; the first impressions on the 4SE. Hopefully, the weather will get better over the next few days/weeks and I might be able to snap a few photos. As for the weather right now, what you see below is how it looked like at the beginning of the week; pretty useless.
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| 22-July-2013 |
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