Originally submitted at Telescopes.com
The CPC 800 GPS XLT is the most portable of Celestron’s top-of-the-line fork-mounted astronomical telescopes and includes Celestron’s premium StarBright XLT coatings. This telescope is at home as a superb visual instrument or, with optional wedge and CCD cameras, as a serious astrophotog…
Great Value
Pros: Strong Construction, Quality Lenses, Compact, Accurate
Cons: Heavy
Best Uses: Astronomy
Describe Yourself: Casual/ Recreational
I love my new scope! The inclusion of the power tank and the set of 2″ eyepieces sealed the deal. It is perfect for me to use in my local astronomy group’s Sidewalk Astronomy events. I just secure the scope in the back seat with the seat belt, toss in the tripod, power tank, eyepiece case, and I am good to go. Setup is easy and the ability to do an alignment with solar system objects is very handy. On my first outing, I aligned the scope on the moon and used the “GOTO” to find Venus and Saturn before anyone else could spot them even with binoculars. The built in floodlight on the power tank also came in very handy in the twilight to find a binky dropped by one of the kids.
This scope is a lot heavier the the NexStar8 I used before, but that is a good trade off for its crisp rock steady views and excellent tracking.
(legalese)