"Watch the skies!" I was told while viewing The Thing (From Another World). As an impressionable young lad, I took the admonition of this James Arness creature feature seriously. Now, thanks to Celestron, I can follow through with ease. Ultima 2000, the La-Z-Boy of precision telescopes, lets you locate and view just about anything you'd ever want in the heavens - without having to learn the entire zodiac. To program it, all you need is the locations of any two known stars. Anyone can find Sirius and Arcturus, right?
The Ultima 2000 uses an embedded database of 10,000 discrete sky objects and a motorized gear system to move the scope to a designated object. It's like the global positioning system in reverse: Instead of satellites in the sky telling you where you are on Earth, Celestron's scope uses your position on terra firma to tell you where things are in the sky - then drives you there!
Although its 8-inch primary mirror is big for an amateur scope, this star stalker is highly portable. The Schmidt-Cassegrain design uses internal mirrors to bounce and focus light, replacing the long tube employed in Dobsonian telescopes. You pay for the portability: The Ultima 2000 costs at least twice as much as a Dobsonian, but the payback is a shorter learning curve. Once you master the assembly instructions (which are harder than they need to be), you can be out on the lawn that first night, bouncing from Saturn's rings to the Great Galaxy in Andromeda. Klaatu barada nikto! I know, I know: different movie. Still, with this scope, it might come in handy.
Ultima 2000: $2,800. Celestron: +1 (310) 328 9560.
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