Celestron - NexStar 6SE Telescope - Computerized Telescope for Beginners and Advanced Users - Fully-Automated GoTo Mount - SkyAlign Technology - 40,000 Plus Celestial Objects - 6-Inch Primary MirrorI am a newb. I bought this out of an abundance of reviews/research before buying. The usage of this telescope is mainly viewing through a scope with my kids. My kids have gotten enthralled with the stars and planets and came to the limits of star gazing via basic phone app maps and looking up at the sky with bare eyes at night, identifying the constellations etc etc. After a year of that -- i felt it was a good time to get them to the next level --- a telescope is the next step. This review is from a total nonexpert newb with the attitude of "i'm doing this for my kids" point of view.After having the 4" version and 6" version in my cart for a while, i finally I purchased a 6SE version because of a nice "warehouse" deal here that made it cost effective compared to a new 4se. Aside CSB: My kids pitched in some of their birthday money to help pay for this --- got them invested into this hobby if anything.Despite watching you-tube vids of "Setup" and reviews, i was still a bit overwhelmed -- keep in mind, i'm a total newb here. My main hobbies are photography / musician -- i'm fairly tech-savvy as well. The unit does come with a "quick setup" poster as well as a fairly mundane manual that assumes a bit too much fore-knowledge imo. In terms of physical setup though, all i needed was a that quick setup poster.... it also helped i saw a tonne of setup videos online as well. Putting it together was pretty easy. The part I was overwhelmed with is actually going outside and aligning/calibrating for first time.Calibration/Alignment:I was overwhelmed a bit tbh! It also doesnt help that it had to be done at night time, in a dark area with some flashlights. Also though at the time of setup it was "spring" , it was still around 1-5c so a bit chilly. With that environment, i felt a bit frustrated already, dealing with this complex setup in that environment. I did everything i could inside (setup, reading manual, etc). Setting this up AS IS without ANY other addon's is a mess. Fiddling with GPS coordinates, UTC time entry, FRUSTRATING first-time star alignment, actually finding a star with a finder and trying to get that into your eyepiece view.... This process for anyone who's never had any experience with a telescope, is daunting. The biggest annoyance for me was not knowing if the focus was in line to actually see anything in the first place, since i have no frame of reference to where in the "focus dial" i should approximate to be able to see anything -- should it be infinity? or what... all i see was black space with this telescope; keep in mind, i DID trial this Indoors and managed to get stuff into focus inside to get used to how the focusing work. Doing this at the sky, where most of it is black darkness-- is HARD. Randomly i dialed around looking around in eyepiece with approximation of the red dot finder... and found a "blob" that isnt just black space.... then i dialed around focus knob until it was a big huge circle with a black dot --> this isnt the star...... you have to dial focus BACK until the star actually is in focus (wherein, the star looks like a small spec of light...) --- then finally i saw Capella and some neighboring stars with the given 25mm eyepiece..... That was brutal. Once you finally get this thing setup, the "goto" was working OK and we were able to locate and view stars and the cluster of stars on a clear sky day. Quite impressive the tech once you get over the setup.I was NOT satisfied with this kit alone. It was really frustrating for me to fiddle a round with the hand set telephone controller, get this alignment done and mess around for a while until then the kids are bored. I bought this not because i wanted to become some kind of enthusiast hobby astronomy observer. I simply wanted this to give my kids next level of star gazing enjoyment. It's NOT easy for my 11yo to just "set it up and do it on her own". No way.Enter add-ons:After a few outings i decided to "upgrade" a bit. I went a bit overboard here. I bought starsense autoalign, celestron focus motor upgrade, wifi upgrade and the standalone gps. All of these were found locally , used, so it was quite cost effective -- buying these new is actually quite cost inhibitive. I DID have to buy a third party 4-1 aux splitter here on amazon to power and control these celestron addons. The 6SE only has a single AUX port. I also bought the A/C adapter and a portable power bank to plug into. Also bought dew shield which i needed in my climate.Order of usefulness of add-ons:1. A/C adapter is a MUST. i roll my eyes here that it was not included WITH the telescope. Burning through AA batteries is just not ideal at all... especially if your climate is cooler.2. I'm not a fan of dragging around extension cables to the yard where we are observing, I bought a small 80$ power bank plug to plug the a/c adapter into.... this is a MUST. I can also use this power bank when i'm throwing the scope in the trunk and going to a less light polluted area. Using AA x8 batteries is just not great but i'm glad the option exists in a pinch3. WIFI adapter -- this unlocks your ability to use phone app to 1) put your gps coord and utc time automatically via your phone's gps so you dont have to enter it in every time. 2) unlocks ability to perform starsense autoalign via a more intuitive interface 3) unlocks ability to "goto" stars via a nice star gazing celestron app... makes it a lot more visual and quick, as opposed to scrolling thru old school telephone handset interface. I had some issues with this connectivity though -- uses direct wifi to phone and often would disconnect from phone. Had to reset things often. Eventually i ended up "forgetting" my existing wifi connections, and only allowing this celestron accesspoint to work... had more stability doing that. Ultimately though, i brought out a laptop and used celestron's software instead of phone app --- used my laptop to connect to the wifi adapter SSID and the windows pc app was much more convenient to use, and much more solid connection without any drop outs. (bigger screen was nice too). You DO have the option to connect the telescope via USB hard wired to a laptop too -- this was 100% stable but inconvenient because of the long usb cable connected to the handset and you run into cordwrap issues. This is an inexpensive option and i think is a must have. Frankly? this should have been built-into the telescope OR at minimum , imo, celestron shouldve included this adapter at this price point.4. Starsense autoalign -- this made everything "simple" This was the add-on that really really worthy of this telescope being called "plug and play". I found that with this accessory, although pricey, just lets my kid "let the computer do its job to align" and then "goto" any star/planet and simply ENJOY. The initial setup was a bit tricky for me but after calibrating camera to scope, subsequent power ups was a matter of 3 minutes..... It doesnt setup things "dead on" all the time but close enough that you can see stars in view and move around to pinpoint. If your use case is like me, i highly recommend costing this out in your budget if youre about to buy a celestron SCT. I think "advanced" users likely scoff at this accessory but perhaps that really isnt the customer base for this option. For newbs though? i love it! I would say not TOTALLY mandatory but I heavily recommend it. With this option , my 11yo can go out and get going in 5 minutes.5. Dew shield. Celestron sells a dew shield for specifically this scope. Its just a wrapper with velcro. IT prevents dew in the air from settling onto the scope glass, assuming youre not observing straight up all the time lol. Depending on your climant you may find that you need this. There are third party stuff you can buy and obviously this is easy to DIY one yourself as well. So i wouldnt call this a must-have because it totally depends on your climate situation. I bought it because i was using my scope in the cold. Dew heaters also exist but then youre talking about additional spending on a controller etc etc...6. Celestron focus motor. I wasnt going to get this at all. the "manual dial" works OK. I wouldnt call this a mandatory upgrade especially if youre just star gazing. It's super easy to "dial in" your focus with the basic knob. I will say that when focusing, the unit shakes so it gets tricky to dial in the focus since the image is moving around. In any case, i ended up finding a focus motor used.... tried it anyway. Install is a bit tricky to get the right tension otherwise things snag. You DO lose the ability to manual focus though, and so require the telescope to be ON, and use the handset OR the app OR the laptop program to dial in the focus. Gives you ability to dial focus at 3 levels of speed -- 1, being VERY slow moving for most accurate focusing, and 3 being fastest. If youre going to get into some entry level photography, i think you will eventually buy this. Getting into photography puts you in another ballgame of accessories and learning and software.... beware.7. Celestron GPS. This is the least useful upgrade. Its expensive and only for people who refuse to use wifi adapter and connect to phone.. The nice thing though is, it acquires gps fix pretty darn fast, faster than your phone connecting to the wifi adapter. So when you turn on the telescope, it will already set coordinates and time before you get into app. Its a "nice to have" but not necessary at all imo. If youre barebones , no phone, no laptop, just scope, then perhaps this will be really handy to get that fix in right away without fiddling with handset manual entry.------------OK so after rigging the scope up to the max .. The telescope is finally something "easy to use". I would honestly say the add-ons above, 1-4, really let my kids and i, enjoy star gazing quick and easy. options 5+7 above, are "nice to haves" depending on your situation. My opinion, the MINIMUM recommended upgrades though, is 1-3 which are not that costly but give you a wayyyy easier first experience.After going out a few weeks now we realised we need more magnification. The scope comes with a basic 25mm eyepiece -- its actually a decent starter piece but ones you get the hang of things, you will definitely want to get a more powerful scope to see things closer (moon/planets). Whatever you do, I highly recommend finding eyepieces with a generous 20mm++ eye relief (a must if you wear glasses but also for non glasses wearers, it just makes viewing easier). That should be your priority. We ended up with an 8mm and a 32mm.... I think we need to play around with this a bit more before we invest in more pieces. Also using 1.25" filters to help increase contrast --- but that stuff comes later after we have a bit more experience.The tripod that comes with this scope is ROCK solid. I've heard folks complain about it with 8se users but with a 6se scope, i think its perfect. Once leveled, i found zero issues keeping this 6se balanced and stable even with all the addons.Carrying this around the car and getting things setup is easy but i think I should buy a padded bag soon. IS it heavy? for an adult its OK.. but it isnt "light". My 11 yo cannot carry this thing fully setup though. In the house i keep it all setup at the door next to the backyard and i have to help bring stuff outside. But for travel, when you disassemble things, individual pieces are light.I really enjoy using this scope now and would love to give it full 5 stars but i will not. It is definitely a fantastic "beginner" telescope, and surely the GOTO system is awesome once configured/aligned -- but I felt like it needed a bit more newb friendly instructions standalone WITHOUT any add-ons. As a beginner, i felt it also should have come with AC adapter and WIFI adapter WITH the kit at this price point. This would have really helped a newb A LOT and i think would have allowed me to give it full 5 stars. I do understand why the starsense option is pricey and optional but in my opinion, if youre like me, with kids, and want to really remove the fuss of setup, i recommend adding this to your budget. It truly is awesome tech.Last point i will mention... as i mentioned i was in the market for 4" or 6" version of this telescope. After experiencing the light gathering ability of this 6", I actually cant imagine enjoying the skies with a smaller telescope with less light gathering capability. So i'm glad to have gotten 6se instead of 4se.This is hopefully useful and helpful feedback for people in my situation. This wasnt meant to be a technical review (lots of videos out there already). Bottom line is, if you are getting into this star gazing business, be prepared to budget in a bit more money to get useful upgrades mentioned above, and eyepieces.clear skies!(note: I didnt add many pictures since there are many out there already but the picture i did share, was with starsense and wifi options installed)