Celestron XLT Coatings

Hi,

Does anyone on this forum think that the Celestron XLT coatings wash out planetary images? :S I have a friend who owned a Nexstar 11" XLT who claims that this is the case, and I think it would be very interesting to hear your experiences between the Celestron XLT, Starbrite coatings, and the Meade UHTC coatings if possible. Thanks much for your time.

Clear skies (someday),

Joe

Hello Joe!
This is the first time that I've heard anything like it...

IMHO the things that would cause planetary "wash" would be bad seeing, central obstruction (caused from secondary mirror) and miscollimation... not the coatings on the corrector plates...

My scope, which is not UHTC, but EMC, gives me great planetary views... (I would expect the ones with higher transmission coatings to be equal or better)



Clear skies!

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Joe Morey said:

Hi,

Does anyone on this forum think that the Celestron XLT coatings wash out planetary images? :S I have a friend who owned a Nexstar 11" XLT who claims that this is the case, and I think it would be very interesting to hear your experiences between the Celestron XLT, Starbrite coatings, and the Meade UHTC coatings if possible. Thanks much for your time.

Clear skies (someday),

Joe

Joe,

Nonsense. Coatings simply increase light tranmission. They are not going to give you a "washed" out image. It sounds like poor contrast, perhaps due to a large central obstruction and optics that are barely or not quite diffraction limited.

The companies need something to brag about, so they emphasize what are really minor differences between their coatings and the other guy. My guess is that they are all pretty similar.

Clear skies, Alan

I owned a NS8GPS Celestron that had excellent optics and gave great planetary images.

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Hi Joe,

Having owned a 9.25 with XLT I can comfortably state that they did not wash out contrast in any way. I have a feeling that most people that own or have owned recently manufactured SCTs that have not performed up to realistic expectations probably had miscollimated scopes or poor seeing, or both.

Clear Skies,

Steve

I have a n8gps with starbright coating and an cge1100 with xlt coating and coating do not cause a washed out image. As Ivan stated poor collimation and poor seeing is what causes image degradation.
Beautiful images Ivan, show off!
danny