My own scope, Celeste, could throw up some excellent high power images, but her star test was not perfect. If it were only the scope's Starbright optics, the Ultima 8 would probably not be remembered so fondly. Were these optics better than other early 90s Celestron SCTS? Most folks in the know would say “no,” same optics went into the cheap Classic C8 as in the ritzy Ultima 8, but in my experience the quality of the average Ultimas’ optical set does seem a hair better than that of the Classics and Powerstars of the time. Not only were the optics good, they featured Celestron’s Starbright enhanced coatings as standard equipment, something unheard of heretofore. And man did they do that with the Ultima. Coming off the Halley debacle, Celestron knew it had to get its optics house in order or risk more bad-mouthing by us amateurs and more lost sales. What this classic scope does have is good optics and the sturdiest mount ever seen on a mass produced 8-inch CAT. In fact it ain’t got a computer despite the fact that for part of its run it was a contemporary of the LX200. No, the Celestron Ultima 8 ain’t got the bells and whistles and computers of modern SCTs.
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