Item: Celestron 8" Ultima 2000 Telescope
Price: $1200.00 - No Trades - Cash only
Location: Hamilton County / Castleton area
This may also be cross posted.
Link to the Manual but a hard copy is included: http://www.company7.com/library/celestron/ultima2k_man_0398.pdf
Original owner. Telescope has been taken out of the case probably less than a dozen times. Works with a laptop using sky mapping software and supposedly android and iOS as well. Adapters for laptop or tablet, not included.
Included:
· 26mm Plössl Ocular 1-1/4"
· Visual Back 1-1/4"
· Star Diagonal, Prism 1-1/4"
· 7x50mm Finderscope with Bracket
· Lens Cap
· Standard counterweights (1 sliding weight, four small weights)
· bolts for attaching the telescope to the optional wedge (no wedge included)
· diameter rod for azimuth clutch adjustment
· Tripod
· Hard copy of manual
· Hand Control
· Padded carrying case
Taken from sctscopes.net - Schmidt Cassegrain telescope advice - Celestron Ultima 2000 - U2K
Assuming you might want to do astrophotography the most popular choices have been the Celestron U2K and the Meade 8” LX200 . (Both Celestron and Meade offer scopes that are intended only for visual observing but not astrophotography, as noted in the Telescope Basics page.)
Many of us amateur astronomers chose the U2K for a number of reasons:
Weight Without the tripod, the U2K is 31 pounds.
Fastar The U2K (as well as Celestron C8’s, the CM-1400, and the new NexStar 8” and 11” GPS scopes) has a Fastar option which, when used with a CCD camera, allows you to convert the scope into a fast (f/2) wide-field Schmidt Camera. This is a major advantage when photographing deep sky objects. A Schmidt Camera is probably the ultimate instrument for deep-sky astrophotography, but the U2K with the Fastar option and a CCD camera will get you pretty close, for some $22,000 less. See the Fastar & Pixcel page on this site for more information.
Aiming The clutch system in the U2K is designed so that you can manually aim the scope at a different object while it’s tracking - the clutches are designed to slip without damage. With the LX200 you need to disengage the tracking motors to aim it manually, and when you do this the LX200 loses its positioning information (because the optical encoder was disconnected from the drive). And you will find that as you gain experience in locating stellar objects you will use the GoTo function less often (typically for hard-to-find deep sky objects), and being required to use a computer to bring a plainly-visible Jupiter into your eyepiece is annoying. The GoTo function in computerized scopes is a great tool that you will often, but not always, use.
Hand Controller The U2K’s hand controller uses a relatively old-fashioned red LED display rather than the more modern LCD display. Whereas the LCD display can be made larger and thus present more information at a glance, LCDs are susceptible to dimming out and becoming unreadable when they get very cold - LEDs do not. So the U2K’s hand controller does not require a warming unit when used in very cold weather.
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Unfortunately Celestron has discontinued the U2K, replacing it with the 8” and 11” NexStar GPS scopes. These scopes sit at around the same price point as the U2K did, and they do use the FasStar system. But the NexStars don’t allow you to manually aim the scope like the U2K did. Note that the 11” NexStar GPS is a lot heavier than the U2K, but you do receive almost twice as much light-gathering power in return for the extra weight. Nevertheless if you can still find a U2K for sale it is highly recommended, even by Celestron employees.
Celestron 8in Ultima 2000 Telescope - Album on Imgur
Price: $1200.00 - No Trades - Cash only
Location: Hamilton County / Castleton area
This may also be cross posted.
Link to the Manual but a hard copy is included: http://www.company7.com/library/celestron/ultima2k_man_0398.pdf
Original owner. Telescope has been taken out of the case probably less than a dozen times. Works with a laptop using sky mapping software and supposedly android and iOS as well. Adapters for laptop or tablet, not included.
Included:
· 26mm Plössl Ocular 1-1/4"
· Visual Back 1-1/4"
· Star Diagonal, Prism 1-1/4"
· 7x50mm Finderscope with Bracket
· Lens Cap
· Standard counterweights (1 sliding weight, four small weights)
· bolts for attaching the telescope to the optional wedge (no wedge included)
· diameter rod for azimuth clutch adjustment
· Tripod
· Hard copy of manual
· Hand Control
· Padded carrying case
Taken from sctscopes.net - Schmidt Cassegrain telescope advice - Celestron Ultima 2000 - U2K
Assuming you might want to do astrophotography the most popular choices have been the Celestron U2K and the Meade 8” LX200 . (Both Celestron and Meade offer scopes that are intended only for visual observing but not astrophotography, as noted in the Telescope Basics page.)
Many of us amateur astronomers chose the U2K for a number of reasons:
Weight Without the tripod, the U2K is 31 pounds.
Fastar The U2K (as well as Celestron C8’s, the CM-1400, and the new NexStar 8” and 11” GPS scopes) has a Fastar option which, when used with a CCD camera, allows you to convert the scope into a fast (f/2) wide-field Schmidt Camera. This is a major advantage when photographing deep sky objects. A Schmidt Camera is probably the ultimate instrument for deep-sky astrophotography, but the U2K with the Fastar option and a CCD camera will get you pretty close, for some $22,000 less. See the Fastar & Pixcel page on this site for more information.
Aiming The clutch system in the U2K is designed so that you can manually aim the scope at a different object while it’s tracking - the clutches are designed to slip without damage. With the LX200 you need to disengage the tracking motors to aim it manually, and when you do this the LX200 loses its positioning information (because the optical encoder was disconnected from the drive). And you will find that as you gain experience in locating stellar objects you will use the GoTo function less often (typically for hard-to-find deep sky objects), and being required to use a computer to bring a plainly-visible Jupiter into your eyepiece is annoying. The GoTo function in computerized scopes is a great tool that you will often, but not always, use.
Hand Controller The U2K’s hand controller uses a relatively old-fashioned red LED display rather than the more modern LCD display. Whereas the LCD display can be made larger and thus present more information at a glance, LCDs are susceptible to dimming out and becoming unreadable when they get very cold - LEDs do not. So the U2K’s hand controller does not require a warming unit when used in very cold weather.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Unfortunately Celestron has discontinued the U2K, replacing it with the 8” and 11” NexStar GPS scopes. These scopes sit at around the same price point as the U2K did, and they do use the FasStar system. But the NexStars don’t allow you to manually aim the scope like the U2K did. Note that the 11” NexStar GPS is a lot heavier than the U2K, but you do receive almost twice as much light-gathering power in return for the extra weight. Nevertheless if you can still find a U2K for sale it is highly recommended, even by Celestron employees.
Celestron 8in Ultima 2000 Telescope - Album on Imgur