CELESTRON CPC 800, 925, 1100 vs CPC Deluxe HD 800, 925, 1100 Telescopes

In the previous articles, we saw Celestron NexStar Evolution series telescopes. In this article, we will see another series from Celestron known as Celestron CPC.

In the CPC series, there are two types of telescopes, one is CPC telescope, and the other is a CPC Deluxe HD telescope. This CPC series of telescopes is targeted towards intermediate-advanced to professional astronomers who are interested in astrophotography.

This CPC Deluxe HD series telescope is used by NASA on the international space station. Also, this was the favorite telescope of one of the greatest minds on earth professor Stephen Hawkins. So, there is no doubt that you’ll get excellent results from this telescope.

These telescopes are made for excellent image quality, for that you need a bigger aperture. So, the basic aperture size of this series of telescopes starts with 8-inch. There is an 8-inch telescope, a 9.25-inch telescope, and an 11-inch telescope in this series. As these telescopes come with bigger aperture sizes, they are very heavy. So these are not grab-and-go telescopes. The total weight CPC 8-inch model is 61 lbs around 28kg. The CPC 9.25-inch model weighs 77 lbs around 35 kg and the CPC 11-inch model weighs 84lbs around 38kg.

So far all the telescopes from Celestron had a single fork mount. But CPC series telescopes are very heavy and a single fork mount would not give you much stability for better results. So this series of telescopes come with a duel fork mount. The duel fork mount can support more weight and offer more stability which ultimately results in better performance.

The mount feels exceptionally sturdy, and there are no issues with vibration and anchors the telescope for ultra-precise tracking. The mount handles additional weight beyond the heavy optical tube, so you’ll have no problem attaching other accessories to the mount without affecting how well it works. All these mounts come with a 40,000 object database with over 100 user-definable objects and expanded information on over 200 objects

The main difference between the CPC & CPC Deluxe HD is the optical tube assembly. All the CPC telescopes are Schmidt-Cassegrain type telescopes. CPC models come with Celestron’s premium StarBright XLT coatings.

The CPC Deluxe HD is an Edge HD-type telescope. All-optical surfaces of this telescope have StarBright XLT coatings. Because of its Edge-HD optical system, it corrects for both coma and field curvature, providing aberration-free images and pinpoint stars across the largest imaging sensors and to the edge of the widest eyepieces. So, when you look through the HD models visually or when taking photos, the stars look pinpoint across the field of view and are not distorted in any way.

The images through CPC HD tend to be brighter and sharper because the optics are corrected for those errors. Also, the CPC Deluxe HD is Fastar compatible. Fastar is a technology developed by Celestron which increases the speed of your telescope by 28 times. This is done by removing the secondary mirror of your optical tube.

So how does this technology works?

Let’s say you have a telescope with a focal ratio of 10. As you can see in the image the light is reflected from the secondary mirror and then goes to the eyepiece. Now with fastar, you can remove the telescope’s secondary mirror and fit your DSLR camera in that spot. As the secondary mirror is removed the focal ratio of the telescope has decreased from 10 to 2 the speed of your telescope has increased. Lower focal ratios are best for lower power wide-field observing and deep space photography.

Which one should you buy?

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