Celestron Advanced VX 700 Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope

Celestron 7-Inch Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope Optical Tube Assembly

The Celestron 7-Inch Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope Optical Tube Assembly is specifically designed to provide highly detailed, superior contrast views of planets and other small celestial objects. Add this Mak-Cass optical tube to a robust computerized equatorial mount and tripod (sold separately) for close-up views of the Moon's landscape, including craters and maria, as well. For deep sky viewing, the Maksutov design is optimally suited for observing fainter targets such as globular clusters and planetary nebulae. The ability of the 7-inch Mak-Cass to emphasize more celestial object contrast will be greatly appreciated by astronomers viewing from urban areas with higher concentrations of light pollution.

Maksutov-Cassegrain Optical Design

The Mak is a catadioptric telescope, which means the optical design includes both a lens and a mirror. The light coming through a Mak passes through the corrector lens to the primary mirror and back to a spherical secondary mirror before it hits your eyepiece. Images are bright, sharp, and virtually free of chromatic aberration.

The Maksutov-Cassegrain’s optical design offers several unique benefits. Instead of a secondary mirror, the Mak features a 'secondary spot' of reflective coating applied directly to the inside of the corrector plate. Because of this, the telescope does not require frequent collimation like a Schmidt-Cassegrain. Also, the secondary spot is significantly smaller than a traditional Schmidt-Cassegrain secondary mirror, giving the Mak its signature high-contrast views.

StarBright XLT Technology

StarBright XLT is Celestron’s revolutionary optical coating system that outperforms any other coating in the commercial telescope market. There are three major components that make up our StarBright XLT high-transmission optical system design. It features a unique enhanced multi-layer mirror coatings made from precise layers of aluminum, SiO2 (quartz), TiO2 (titanium dioxide), and SiO2 (silicon dioxide). Reflectivity is fairly flat across the spectrum, optimizing it for both imaging and visual observing. The multi-layer anti-reflective coatings are made from precise layers of MgF2 (magnesium fluoride) and HfO2 (hafnium dioxide). Finally, the StarBright XLT uses high-transmission water white glass instead of soda lime glass for the corrector lens. Taken together, these three components make StarBright XLT one of the finest optical coatings available.

Celestron Advanced VX GoTo Mount

Engineered from the ground up with astroimaging in mind, the new Advanced VX series from Celestron sets a new standard in mid-level telescopes. Advanced VX provides you with many of the features found on Celestron’s most sophisticated German equatorial mounts, at an extremely affordable price. Experienced imagers will love taking this portable mount to a dark sky site, with all the performance of their larger observatory mount. Or, if you’re new to imaging, this mount will help you get started with the hobby and keep up with your needs for years to come.

Design

Celestron's Advanced VX Mount is an integrated telescope support, alignment and guiding system and was specifically designed to provide optimum imaging performance for smaller telescopes. The mount holds a maximum instrument capacity of 30 lbs. This mount packs some of the features found on more sophisticated German Equatorial mounts, minus the added bulk or cost. Now your smaller telescope can take advantage of All-Star Polar Alignment and autoguider support. Advanced VX features significantly larger base castings than the previous design, improving stability under heavier loads.

Motors

To enhance tracking performance, the mount features permanently programmable Periodic Error Correction (PEC). PEC eliminates recurring track errors from the worm gear to prevent trailing and improve photographs. You’ll also be able to track through long exposures using the PEC. The Advanced VX improved motors offer more torque and can handle slight load imbalances with ease.

Features

An updated industrial design offers more rigidity, less flexure and improved aesthetics. The new design allows viewing or imaging across the meridian without interference from the motors housings, so you can seamlessly image the best part of the night sky. With the enhanced latitude range, the telescope can be used between 7 – 77° latitude allowing for a larger range of view. The improved electronics contain increased memory for future expansion. The mount has an adjustable stainless steel tripod and a 12 lb. counterweight for extra stability.

Technologies

Start observing celestial objects with the push of a button on the NexStar+ Hand Control. It's pre-loaded with a huge database of over 40,000 celestial objects. Automatically slew to objects in a variety of catalogs, including the Messier, NGC, Caldwell, and SAO brightest stars. NexStar+ hand control offers multiple language programming (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish). For enhanced pointing and tracking accuracy, the mount features Celestron's All-Star Polar Alignment. This system uses multiple guide stars to assist tracking across the night sky while keeping the optical tube parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation.

Observers and astroimagers will be impressed by the seamless operation the Advanced VX SkyAlign function. It makes computerized aligning of the telescope fast, easy, and accurate--simply point at any three bright objects in the sky and the telescope aligns itself. Navigation and tracking of the night's sky is as easy as pushing a button once the telescope is precision aligned.

Celestron 12 lb Counterweight for Advanced VX

Whether you are enhancing your mount setup or buying a replacement part, the counterweight is there to balance the weight of the optical tube (OTA) and accessories on the other side of the Right Accession (RA Axis). If you add accessories to your telescope setup (ie camera, guider, etc), you may need to add additional counterweights to off-set the weight.

Features

If the balance is off on one side or the other, it can do damage to your OTA and setup, the motor gear, and/or may have issues with tracking accuracy. You can add additional counterweights to improve the responsiveness to the system by reducing the mass inertia, though you need to make sure you space out the counterweights along the shaft to reduce damage to your setup and that it is cost-effective and worth it for your telescope setup.

Design

This counterweight comes with sturdy knurled knob locks to safely hold in place on the counterweight shaft. The counterweight is designed to fit 19mm counterweight shafts