This past Saturday, I was lucky enough to find an old C8 telescope in a yard sale! Optically, it is in great condition (no scratches, just some dust on the corrector plate) - the mirror inside is spotless. Whoever had this took good care of it, or just didn't use it much. I got it for $150!
I cleaned it up and assembled it yesterday... It has all-manual RA & DEC knobs, a wedge, and a functioning clock drive. Using it for the first time, I found that I really enjoyed it--much more than my computerized NexStar 6SE--because of the effort I had to put in starhopping and aligning!
As far as I can tell, the closest model is a Celestar 8 from between 1996-1999, but the clock drive looks different.
Anyone know offhand what year/model this is?
How is the tracking quality with these old clock drives? Autoguiding is obviously not an option.
Thanks so much!