Celestron Advanced VX 8 Edge HD telescope: Full review - Space.com

This is an optically excellent telescope with a rugged, lightweight computerized mount.

 The Celestron Advanced VX 8-inch EdgeHD is a versatile telescope system for intermediate to advanced amateur astronomers, but still small and lightweight enough to transport easily for observing out in the country.

The 8-inch aperture is enough to view and photograph all types of celestial objects, and the computerized equatorial mount makes it easy to find and track them.

Mount type: German equatorial, computerized, with servo motors.

The author has been using a Celestron Advanced VX 8 Edge HD as their main equipment since 2014 and knows them well.

The computerized mount combines Celestron's NexStar firmware with a German-style equatorial mount whose main axis points at the celestial pole.

Compared to competitors, the Advanced VX mount head is both lightweight and relatively rugged, not easily damaged or thrown out of adjustment.

The telescope, mount head and tripod separate easily for transport.

High-quality eyepieces bring out the best in this fine telescope, so don't skimp.

However, for long exposures of nebulae and galaxies, with an autoguider and guidescope sending constant corrections to the mount, the Advanced VX left me wanting (and eventually moving to) a heftier mount with more precise gears and less backlash.

That is only a problem when the Advanced VX is carrying a telescope this large.

Because the Advanced VX is an equatorial mount, the setup is more than just the usual process of centering a couple of stars that the telescope automatically points to.

This is a fine telescope for viewing all types of celestial objects.

If your main interest is long-exposure astrophotography, skip the Advanced VX and get the same telescope on a Celestron CGX or Losmandy GM8 mount (at an appreciably higher cost)

If you're new to astronomy and not yet good at recognizing stars, this may be a bit much; you can get very similar views with a Celestron 6 or 8-inch NexStar telescope on a fork-arm mount which is much easier to carry around and set up

Covington started looking at, and photographing, the night sky over half a century ago and has never stopped. By day, after a long academic career at the University of Georgia’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, he is now doing AI research and development in the financial industry. He is the author of Digital SLR Astrophotography, How to Use a Computerized Telescope, Astrophotography for the Amateur, and other books and articles. He lives near Atlanta with his wife, his daughter, and a varying number of cameras and telescopes