New Nexstar 8i Special edition

[VinSnr]

i thought the royalties is only for the true north technology?

The Nexstar 8 has no true north technology what.....what is there to do with royalties??

Hi, not sure what is meant by true north technology, but royalties were for "level-North" alignment. See: http://www.celestron.com/news/index.htm

Note that auto-two star alignment does NOT have "level-North". This was noticed by Nexstar users and it is also in the manual(checked). Most of the Nexstars currently have to "point the tube north and level" in the "auto-star" alignment.

IMHO, this type of alignment was designed so that "Celestron will not have to pay Meade royalties equal to the greater of $100-per-unit or 8% of Celestron’s net revenue from sales of all telescopes that utilize the “level-North” technology."

The "level North" technology means the scope has the ability to level itself automatically and finding celestial North automatically too.

The original Single-arm Nexstar 8 doesn't have this technology. So what royalties are there to pay? Saying that the new auto two star alignment was integrated into the new Orange Nexstar 8 in order to avoid royalties is baseless......since the orginal nexstar 8 doesn't have to pay royalties anyway.

[carlogambino]

Not sure about this, but i read on the yahoo groups(Nexstar) from this guy that:"He he he, as I said in Summer (and others said), I did suspect that
Celestron would have a way of changing the HC and alignment that did
not require the payment of royalties. And if you read the
instructions it is simple. You just have to know where one star is,
and of course need to know your location, time, etc. and its going to
auto-align. Hey Meade...WE ARE allowed to find one star, aren't we?
"

I'm personally not sure about the details of the lawsuits that Meade filed against Celestron(there were 2).

[VinSnr]

Not sure about this, but i read on the yahoo groups(Nexstar) from this guy that:"He he he, as I said in Summer (and others said), I did suspect that
Celestron would have a way of changing the HC and alignment that did
not require the payment of royalties. And if you read the
instructions it is simple. You just have to know where one star is,
and of course need to know your location, time, etc. and its going to
auto-align. Hey Meade...WE ARE allowed to find one star, aren't we?
"

I'm personally not sure about the details of the lawsuits that Meade filed against Celestron(there were 2).

The royalties are more for the Nexstar GPS series because those have the "level north" technology. And maybe because of this, the Nexstar 9.25" XLT is actually priced higher than the Meade 10" LX200 UHTC.

Obviously the guy who said that doesn't know where the royalties come from.

[VinSnr]

There's this new special edition of the nexstar 8i with the classic orange C8 tube. It also seems to have a different alignment procedure with the other Nexstar i series. Look out here:

http://www.celestron.com/prod_pgs/tel/n ... /index.php

Ok dude...i think now I know why people are linking this scope with the royalty issue.

Apparently, the GPS module of the 5i and 8i series has true north and leveling technology. In other words, it doesn't just feed the coordinates, but also find north and level the scope. This is the area that made Meade unhappy.

So now with the Orange tube special edition, Celestron got rid of the finding north stuff with the auto two star alignment. When you set up the scope, you don't have to find north. You don't have to make it exactly level. Just orientate the scope anywhere you like. You then find the first alignment star. The scope will then guess the location of the 2nd alighment star.

I am not sure how the scope can guess the 2nd star by just knowing the first star from you and without knowing where the scope is pointing from the start. But if it works, then this scope is quite a good deal because it behaves like a GPS scope without the need to find north and level the scope. (but you still need to save your coordinates in the hand controller first)

[MooEy]

hmm..not too hard for the mount to guess where it is pointing. most users dun set their tripod pointing towards the sky, they usually set it leveled. after first star, it shouldn't be too hard for the mount.

~MooEy~

[VinSnr]

hmm..not too hard for the mount to guess where it is pointing. most users dun set their tripod pointing towards the sky, they usually set it leveled. after first star, it shouldn't be too hard for the mount.

~MooEy~

Maybe...

I have an uncanny feeling that Celestron may put more QC and quality check into these scopes because of that classic orange colour that they are so proud of.

I have seen an old orange C8 before.....and I can say that the optics is one of the best I ever seen on a SCT. 20 years old and still going strong for that scope. If these Special edition scopes is anything close to that, then we could be seeing a winner here for the price.

[dan]

Hi,

Actually I quite like N8i-SE, in terms of design and light weigh, but somehow the shipping cost of S$500 from US is rather high. Has anybody make enquiry with shipping cost lower than this?

Dan

[Airconvent]

Hi,

Actually I quite like N8i-SE, in terms of design and light weigh, but somehow the shipping cost of S$500 from US is rather high. Has anybody make enquiry with shipping cost lower than this?

Dan

yeah...short of protests from those who frown on the single fork mount, I thought it was the best compromise of size, weight and performance. Furthermore, the nexstar forums are replete with owners who are very happy with it.

Apart from Perseid's truss Dob, this is another scope I am eyeing. Once on astromart, this guy was willing to ship to me (most won't. they don't trust asians) and quoted shipping cost of around S$400. Almost got it if not for the fact I could not get a decent offer for my ETX105

However, for the price, you don't get the more reliable Fedex, UPS but the plain old US Postal Services...

I don't intend to pay the extra for the special edition but if there is one N8i selling at a reasonable price here, I will grab it! Too bad the AstroScience is selling it at a whopping $4500!!

rich

[fizzy123]

Hi Rich,
don't be in a hurry to sell ur ETX105. It is portable and u hav yet to exploit all the functions on it. :idea:

[carlogambino]

Apparently, the GPS module of the 5i and 8i series has true north and leveling technology.

I wanted to post about that, but I thought that since the GPS module is ALSO supported by Nexstar 8i SE, this would be contradicting myself. So what is this stuff all about anyway?