Question about the 9.25"

I have a 3 yr. old Celestar C8.. have been hearing the the raves from some 9.25 owners that state the marked improvement in the added 1.25" I have not had the chance to view through a 9.25 yet. would like to hear some of your thoughts if you have tried both.. Is it also true that the Tube on the 9.25 is actually longer than the C11? I guess if all I have heard so far is true I will be ready for the up-grade.. thank you all, John Meiners, Astoria, OR.

According to Celestron, the C9.25 is 7.5lbs lighter than the C11 and 1 inch shorter in length. I recently picked up a C9.25 in trade on Astromart in trade which seems to have excellent optics, though I haven't been able to use it under the best seeing conditions. I think the longer primary focal ratio probably makes the C9.25 slightly less sensitive to errors in collimation, which may help explain why these scopes seem to be so consistent. I have also noticed that there is less mirror shift on my particular C9.25 than any other Schmidt Cassegrain I've looked through. The difference between a C8 and a C9.25 is more noticeable than I would expect given the fairly small difference in aperture. A C11 will certainly beat the C9.25 on deep sky objects. I haven't done any side by side comparisons with a C11 so I can't comment on planetary performance differences.

Joplin

My neighbor just received his new NexStar 9.25 6 weeks ago and my NexStar-11 arrived a week later. Mounted side by side they appear nearly the same size. While both have astonishingly great optics, the 11" consistently outperforms the 9.25" on both deep sky and planetary viewing. Celestron is now turning out their best optics ever. Some pictures and more info can be found here...
http://home.earthlink.net/~emeryh/wedge.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~emeryh/11-gps.htm

I think it's a myth. If you want to see a difference, go to the C11.

I've had them side by side too, and if both are properly collimated and cooled, the C11 will run circles around the 9.25"

Don W

I think C11XLT should generally outperform the C9.25XLT. Question is, is the additional cost worth it? Money no object get the C11XLT.

I really don't understand Celestron's pricing though.

Nexstar trim the difference is $485
CGE trim the difference is $405
OTA only the difference is $930

Anacortes was the source.

Having said all that I have the 9.25 because I bought the OTA only and couldn't spend the xtra $1,000.