Celestron CGE – premium German equatorial mount go-to Schmidt-Cassegrains

More Information  · Supplied Accessories  · Recommended Accessories  · Images of Some Features Price $6,999.00 List Price $13,397.95 Highest Useful Magnification 560x Visual Limiting Magnitude 14.7 Focal Length 2800mm Focal Ratio f/10 Resolution 0.42 arc seconds Aperture 11" Net Weight 204 lbs. Heaviest Single Component 75 lbs. Warranty 2 years

• 90 pound payload capacity high precision CGE Pro German equatorial mount
• NexStar go-to computer hand control with 40,000+ object database
• 11” Schmidt-Cassegrain optics
• StarBright XLT optical multicoatings for the highest possible light transmission
• 9 x 50mm finderscope
• 40mm 1.25” eyepiece (70x)
• 2-year warranty

    The Celestron CGE 1100 Pro puts the light-gathering power of an 11” aperture Schmidt-Cassegrain optical tube – a light grasp almost 1600 times greater than even the sharpest dark-adapted eye – on a newly-designed Celestron CGE Pro go-to German equatorial mount. The observatory grade CGE Pro mount is capable of carrying payloads of up to 90 pounds, more than three times the weight of this system’s 27.5 pound 11” optical tube, making this mount/OTA combination ideal for rock-steady imaging and visual observing.

    For the ultimate in brightness and contrast, the CGE 11 Pro optical tube combines its immense light-gathering capability with state-of-the-art Starbright XLT multicoatings to reveal to your eye and camera star clusters, nebulas, planets, and galaxies in amazing detail.

   The advanced NexStar computer hand control makes finding over 40,000 of those stars and objects easy and automatic, so you can spend more time looking at those objects, rather than looking for them.

   The 11” aperture f/10 CGE 1100 Pro optical tube uses the latest version of the Celestron-pioneered optical system that took phenomenally expensive Schmidt-Cassegrain optics out of the hands of professional astronomers and made them available for the first time at a reasonable price to all amateur astronomers. In essence, the original Celestron SCT made modern amateur astronomy possible. The computerized CGE 1100 Pro makes today’s astronomy easier than ever before.

   Starbright XLT optics
   CGE Pro mount
   CGE Pro NexStar computer

This Telescope’s Optical System . . .

• Schmidt-Cassegrain optical tube: 11" aperture (2800mm focal length f/10). Guaranteed diffraction-limited optical performance. The 24" long aluminum optical tube weighs only 27.5 pounds, making it easy to lift and install on the CGE Pro mount in the field.

• Starbright XLT fully multicoated optics: This high transmission/high reflectivity optical coatings package gives you visibly higher light transmission for brighter deep space images and shorter exposure times during CCD and 35mm photography. It also increases the contrast on subtle lunar, planetary, and nebula details when compared with a scope with ordinary coatings or multicoatings. For more details, click on the “Starbright XLT" icon above.

• Focusing: Focusing is accomplished by turning a knob at the rear of the scope body that moves the primary mirror fore and aft along a central baffle tube to adjust the focus. The Celestron focusing mechanism is supported by two pre-loaded ball bearings, minimizing the “mirror flop" typical of bushing focus mechanisms that causes image shift during critical focusing.

• Finderscope: 9 x 50mm multi-coated straight-through achromatic design, with a substantial 5.8° field of view. It is mounted in a quick-release bracket for fast set-up.

• Visual back: Removable 1.25" visual back holds visual and photographic accessories such as a star diagonal, tele-extender, etc.

• Star diagonal: 1.25" multi-coated prism type.

• Eyepiece: 1.25" 40mm Plössl (70x). The field of view of the fully multi-coated eyepiece is 0.61 degrees, nearly 20% larger than the full Moon.

This Telescope’s Mount . . .

• Heavy duty CGE Pro computerized German equatorial mount: The CGE Pro mount includes dual-axis slewing/tracking motors on each axis for go-to computer control. There are nine motor drive speeds: 0.5x and 1x sidereal for guiding; 4x, 8x, 16x, and 64x for centering; and 0.5°, 2°, and a fast 5.5° per second for slewing. The inherent drive accuracy (periodic error) of the observatory grade CGE Pro mount is a very good +/- 9 arc seconds or better, which can be further reduced by using the scope’s permanent periodic error correction program.

• Powering the CGE 1100 Pro: The mount comes with a car battery cord to operate from the cigarette lighter plug of your car or from a rechargeable 12VDC battery pack. The 17 amp hour capacity Celestron Power Tank #4517V is recommended and will operate the scope all night long without danger of running out of power.

• Polar alignment: To make a casual polar alignment for visual use quick and easy, there’s a latitude scale with large ergonomically-friendly altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs. No polar alignment finderscope is available to aid in the precise polar alignment required for long exposure astrophotography, nor is any needed. A unique Celestron All-Star Polar Alignment program built into the NexStar hand control helps you do a very precise computerized polar alignment in mere minutes, using any bright star, even when Polaris is hidden by trees or buildings. The program works in both northern and southern hemispheres.

• Adjustable height tripod: The tripod has 2.75" diameter stainless steel legs with dual leg braces for rigidity and excellent vibration damping characteristics. The top brace forms a convenient tray that holds eyepieces and accessories to keep them up out of the dew-soaked grass.

• Mounting the scope: A dovetail slot on the top of the mount holds the long dovetail slide bar mounted under the optical tube. This allows you to slide the optical tube fore and aft in the dovetail slot to quickly and precisely balance the optical tube in declination when you add or subtract accessories, eliminating the need for an extra counterweight to balance a camera or other accessories. Three large hand-tighten knobs in the oversized dovetail mounting platform hold the optical tube very securely in place.

• Balancing the scope: The two sliding 22 pound counterweights are locked in place on the counterweight shaft with a single large hand-tighten knob each. This makes it easy to rebalance the scope in right ascension if you add heavy photographic accessories. For more details, click on the “CGE Pro mount" icon above.

• NexStar computer hand control: The supplied NexStar computer hand control has a built-in database of more than 40,000 stars and objects that it can find and track for you. These include the complete RNGC, Messier, Caldwell, IC, and Abell catalogs; selected SAO stars; the planets, the Moon, and others. The custom database lists of all the most famous deep-sky objects by name and catalog number; the most beautiful double, triple and quadruple stars; variable stars; non-planetary solar system objects; and asterisms.

• The NexStar display: All of the database and scope operation information is displayed on a double line, 16-character, liquid crystal display on the hand control. There are 19 fiber optic backlit LED buttons to make it easy for you to control the computer without affecting your dark-adapted vision. The NexStar hand control can provide an easily-visible illuminated right ascension and declination readout of the scope’s position on the sky. This provides much greater accuracy than conventional (and hard to see at night) manual setting circles for star-hopping or locating objects by their celestial coordinates alone, should you want to observe the old-fashioned way without using the computer to find objects for you.

• Some NexStar features: The software built into the NexStar hand control includes many, many features and programs discussed at greater length by clicking on the “CGE Pro NexStar computer" icon above. An RS-232 communication port on the hand control allows you to operate the telescope via a personal computer using the supplied RS-232 cable and NexRemote software CD-ROM. The hand control and motor control software is flash-upgradeable to allow you to download the latest product updates over the Internet to keep your CGE Pro mount always at the cutting edge of technology. An autoguider port is located on the electronic pier for guided, but unattended, long exposure astrophotography.

• Aligning on the sky: Five different alignment methods are built into the NexStar computer – 2-star align, quick align, 1-star align, last alignment, and solar system align – allowing you to choose a level of computer accuracy in automatically finding objects with which you are comfortable. Alignment is easily accomplished in only a few short minutes. You can be observing in less than 15 minutes after you first take the scope outdoors. There’s even a new and unique “All-Star" software-assisted alignment of the mount’s polar axis using a single bright star that will have you ready for imaging before it’s even dark enough to see the North Star. For more details, click on the “CGE Pro NexStar computer" icon above.

• Two-year warranty: All Celestron go-to telescopes have a two-year warranty, double that of competitive go-to scopes.