Lastly, I was wondering about the ASIAir +. I've read a bit that it may not be the most perfect marraige with the Celestron NexStar mounts. Is it possible to simply use the ASIAir to only connect to the camera (and not connect at all to the mount)? Then just use it to control the camera? Though I'm sure this is an expensive solution for camera control only (especially without auto-guiding) I really would like to control the camera via smartphone app versus the need for a small laptop.

With gas giant Jupiter also at a good position in the sky and a few degrees away from the moon, the NexStar made short work of locating the planet and its four largest satellites: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter was visible in the field of view as a bright disk, with Ganymede and Europa appearing as sharp points of white light flanking the giant’s left limb, while Io and Callisto could be found relatively near to the planet’s right.Faint brown and cream bands were visible across Jupiter's surface. One of our favorite things about the Celestron NexStar 6SE is the SkyAlign technology it uses to locate and align targets. Navigating the night sky has never been easier, especially since the software makes use of a database featuring more than 40,000 different targets.Mirrorless Cameras Canon EOS-M Cameras Canon EOS-R Mirrorless Cameras Fujifilm X Mirrorless Cameras Nikon Z Cameras Sony Alpha Cameras Panasonic Lumix S Cameras Panasonic Lumix G Cameras Olympus OM-D & PEN Cameras Canon EOS-M Mirrorless Cameras The Celestron Astro Fi 130 has less aperture than the 6SE, but its vastly shorter focal length and the ability to take 2” eyepieces allows you to achieve a much wider field of view which is more ideal for viewing deep-sky objects. The Astro Fi mount is also controlled via your smartphone or tablet rather than a hand controller. The optics are the same as those in the Virtuoso GTi/ Heritage 130P tabletop Dobsonian. Once you are through the initial set up – which takes about 10-20 minutes – subsequent set ups will be faster. You just need to enter the date and time. You could strap this database onto every telescope out there on the market, and only a handful of them are going to be able to utilize it effectively. The Celestron NexStar 6SE Telescope is one such telescope. Creating an extensive database for the sake of creating something large and impressive is one thing, but creating such a massive database and then creating a telescope that can show all of the objects properly is another thing entirely.

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded. With the nearly-full moon taking pride of place quite late into the evening, we took the opportunity to view our natural satellite’s cratered surface. The lunar views that we saw were impressive: the NexStar revealed well-defined crater walls and lunar mare to a very high standard — the craters Copernicus and Tycho were particularly impressive and crystal clear using the modest 5.91” aperture.

So this makes this telescope great for looking at specific distant objects and can show you some truly stunning details that other telescopes just can’t see. T he Moon has a ridiculous amount of detail, with features as small as a mile visible. We could go and write paragraphs about how great the views of the Moon are with the 6SE, or arguably any decent telescope, but we couldn’t possibly do it justice, so we’ll let the views speak for themselves. I started astronomy 20 years ago and stopped for university formation and lost connection to the sky for a long time, so I was aware that to start once again I need a first scope, but I did not dig enough to see the change in perspective. If you want to go even bigger than the Celestron NexStar 6SE’s 6-inch aperture, the most cost-effective way is to go for a Dobsonian design like the Celestron StarSense Explorer, which comes in 8-inch and 10-inch variants. It’s a completely manual telescope but comes with Celestron’s much more modern StarSense technology, which uses an app as a guide but requires a smartphone to be perched on an attached holder.