Celestron CPC925 Cassegrain Telescope Part 1: Unboxing Video 

Thanks for that - yes we do intend to keep putting more videos up, but we want to keep them simple and targeted to a beginner-intermediate audience. There are already lots of videos on really advanced equipment and techniques. What would you like to see next?

@@OpticsCentralAustralia Hmm, well I'm thinking about getting a motor drive for my manual equatorial mount (EQ3). Maybe a video on how to install and operate that?

@@IxianMace We've put your suggestion into the queue. But there are a couple of different upgrades for an EQ3 available, simple motor drives for slewing your mount and tracking, and a full upgrade to a go-to mount. Both are possible but we'll need to order the relevant parts after we decide to make the video. It'll be a little while.

@@OpticsCentralAustralia Thank you for taking my request into consideration! I wanted to learn the night sky and reduce the costs of my telescope setup, so I specifically avoided purchasing any bundles with go-to capability. The upgrade I have in mind is just a simple motor drive to counter Earth's rotation so I don't have to keep recentering the object as it drifts out of view. Apologies for not being specific enough about the type of upgrade.

Indeed, it's a specialist for planets. The thing that holds it back for me is its weight. It's very heavy.

@@OpticsCentralAustralia It is difficult in the fork but on the AVX mount it is mobile and can be separated, which makes things easier.

The CPC925 is a large heavy scope, and I wouldn't want to transport it often. You can get an Evolution 925 with a single arm fork, but I don't think it's as stable as the CPC.

@@OpticsCentralAustralia After experiencing the instability of my now returned 8SE single arm, I am replacing with the CPC 800 XLT.... Best advise - with a larger scope - 6" or greater, only get a scope with a DUAL ARM mount.... Otherwise trying to focus at medium to high power will be a BIATCH....

Thanks Theodore. It's a fantastic scope, but remember that it's very large - if you want to take it to a dark sky site you'll need a good-sized car!

hi, would a 8 inch cpc be better for transport..

@@G200sm It'd be more portable, but you get less light into it. I guess it depends on what you are capable of transporting. I love the CPC - it's way more stable than the NexStar/Evolution.

Taking the tube off a CPC mount is not something that I'd recommend. It'd probably be possible, but if you know you're going to do it, I'd start with the equatorial mount.

Hello, I am desperately trying to find someone who can help me with my Celestron CPC 1100. I am new to astronomy and it is very complicated to set up the eyepieces. Like I told you, I don’t know what I’m doing. I also would like some information on what type of lenses to get so I can see close-ups of Saturn etc. I saw some eye pieces sold in a kit. I don’t know what I pieces are good for viewing watt. Any help or videos to get me through this would be very appreciated. Thank you for all your help

Mark montes sr get a high quality 2x or 3x Barlow lens and a high quality eyepiece with a small focal length. If you are still using the mirror diagonal that came with the telescope I would recommend getting a high quality prism one.

@@markmontessr7085 Wow, a CPC1100 is a big scope to start off with, but if you're strong its an amazing piece of equipment. Magnification of eyepieces is determined by their focal length, which is normally printed on the side of the eyepiece. The smaller the number on the eyepiece, the larger the magnification they will give you. The eyepiece you get with the scope is (I think) a 40mm one, which is low magnification. Magnification on telescopes is normally limited by their aperture (the size of the lens out the front) because that's what provides the light for the telescope to work with. The CPC1100 has a really big aperture, which means you can get good results out of a quite short eyepiece - like a 5mm or even smaller before the image starts to get poor. Of course, there are also good eyepieces and cheap eyepieces. My favourite good quality eyepiece is called a saxon Cielo. These have ED glass and lots of elements, meaning the image you get is clear, bright and has good colour representation. Cielos come as short as 2.3mm in focal length, but this one might give you a degraded image with an 11" aperture. It's probably better suited to huge Dobsonian scopes around 16" to 20". Remember that planets are very small. You're never going to get an image of Saturn that fills the view, but a CPC1100 with a 5mm eyepiece will give you a view where the planet is about a tenth of the diameter of your field of view - which is a great deal better than nearly any other telescope available. The Celestron eyepiece kits normally contain medium to lower quality eyepieces. I'd recommend that you buy higher quality eyepieces one at a time. They might be expensive, but you won't regret it. Good luck and happy viewing!

You're after just the tripod from the CPC? Celestron might sell one as a spare part, but I don't think it's a separate product.

True, it won't make the optics better, but it will hold them more stably. More inertia means less shake. You'll know that the Evolution 925 has a single fork, and with a tube that size you can just hear the bearings groaning.

What sort of telescope did you get? Specifically, what focal length? Planets are very small objects, and getting a decent quality, large image is difficult. Check out www.thescruffyastronomer.com/2020/08/why-cant-i-see-planet-as-big-image.html

If it was this telescope (the Celestron CPC 925) you got, you can get mugh higher magnification by using a different eyepiece than the scope ships with. From memory, it comes with a 40mm eyepiece. You could get a much shorter focal length eyepiece for planetary viewing. I think a 9.25" aperture could support (for example) a 4.5mm Cielo.

Optics Central Optics Central hello, I got the Celestron Cpc 800 i use the same eye peice and everything that came in with the telescope. I’m not really good with telescopes and everything But I think the focal length is 40 mm PLOSSL and it says it’s 1 1/4. Will buying better focus length make me see the moon up closer and make me see planets a little better than just a bright small star. Thank you for helping.

@@bleak3510 Yes, it will. The Celestron CPC 800 has a focal length of 2032mm, which means the 40mm eyepiece has a magnification of 2032/40=50.8 times. A decent view of Saturn or Jupiter needs maybe 90 or more, and Mars is definitely more. If you can get an eyepiece of closer to 10mm, then you'll have a much larger view of the planets - a magnification of 2032/10=203.2 times. I don't know where you're located, but if you were buying from our shop, I'd recommend a 9mm saxon Cielo eyepiece. It's high quality (better even than the Plossl you've got). That will give you about 226 times magnification. You could go even larger if you want, but much more and the image will start to get dim.

Optics Central thank you so much for your help. I’ve spent much on this telescope and I wasn’t sure if the telescope wasn’t working or what. I live in Florida just to let you know. I will be buying a better eyepiece right now to see planets better. And One more question! Should I buy more than one eyepiece to see galaxy’s and nebulas? And if yes what do you recommend? And if I need anything else let me know?

It certainly is very heavy, and I'm 56 years old. You'll notice I was able to lift it, but I don't think I'd want to do it often.

Maybe not our our best video from a technical perspective, but I hope the content is helpful to people.

It wasn't that bad. A good thing, they didn't put some weird music.

THEY MAKE SO GOOD VIDEOS WHATS THE PROBLEM?