Anyone own a Meade telescope?

Soldato
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Seriously considering investing in a Meade ETX.

Does anyone have one? My girl and I are thinking about getting one and camping out during weekends and observing the skies. Always been into astronomy but never yet had a scope. The idea of seeing deep sky objects seems pretty awesome.

Just after opinions on these scopes really - your experiences with them.

Patrick Moore plays the Xylophone!
 
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mrdbristol said:
Buy a mirror and look at Uranus ?

Cheers,

Mark

Get a big enough mirror and you'll see the full moon :D

I've always wanted to see through a telecope and take a closer look at the moon, i often just look up at the sky and think "wow" when its a clear night.

I would think maybe best to try find some astronomy club to get advice and maybe even check out there equipment would be best if no one here know a lot about it.
 
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Getting a telescope can be either very frustrating or very rewarding - it is also a mine field! 1st thing is to forget all the images of galaxies and planets you see in the media, coz you won't be seeing them through your scope!

The biggest factor in what you are going to see is budget. The more money = bigger mirror/lens = bigger brighter images.

I own a few small scopes, a 4.5" reflector, 80mm & 102mm Refractors.

Through the eyepieces on the larger 4" scopes Jupiter for example is shown as a small disc with 2 black lines running through it. You will not see it in colour and there will be minimal if no surface area.

If I connect up my cameras at prime focus I can get images like this (taken earlier this year)

mid_865-307FB8B8729D4C95BB41D3249D052A0C.jpg


Have a look at my site, I have plopped some info about small scopes on it

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~pinter75/

Also check here for good advice from other UK users.

http://forum.skyatnightmagazine.com/tt.asp?forumid=24

I like the Celestron range of scopes, the new SLT is awesome, couple it up with your PC for selection and tracking of objects and it makes observing easier.
 
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Pinter75 said:



Thats a beautiful site you have there!! and you may be just the man to help me!! i have about £260 my grand father left me when he died recently and ive been thinking about buying a scope :)

when you say "you wont see colour" is that regardless of what telescope you have ? i always wanted to see saturns rings but i dont know if thats possible on my budget :(
 
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I've been waiting for a few years now to get hold of a decent telescope. I'mk budgeting £4500 for the scope and then extra for a decent camera and accessories when the time comes. I know cannon now do a digital SLR which has been developed for astrophotography.

Something like a Meade LX200GPS 14" would be nice :D
 

SIB

SIB

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I owned a Meade ETX 125 and it was a cracking scope but i got a lot better images from my Helios Evostar 150 (150mm refractor) so ended up selling the Meade. The refractor gives a much "cleaner" image and the scope was a few hundered pounds cheaper.
The "goto" feature of the Meade sounds fantastic but in practice it is very fiddly. You need to get the spirit level attachment for the mount and the scope must be 100% level. You'll spend a good 30 mins to an hour setting it up properly if you want go to to work.
If you have a laptop and the correct cables then you can control the scope from the software (Starry night) which is pretty good once you have the scope set up.
I just prefered the ease, images, etc of the Refractor :)
 
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Soldato
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SIB said:
I owned a Meade ETX 125 and it was a cracking scope but i got a lot better images from my Helios Evostar 150 (150mm refractor) so ended up selling the Meade. The refractor gives a much "cleaner" image and the scope was a few hundered pounds cheaper.
The "goto" feature of the Meade sounds fantastic but in practice it is very fiddly. You need to get the spirit level attachment for the mount and the scope must be 100% level. You'll spend a good 30 mins to an hour setting it up properly if you want go to to work.
If you have a laptop and the correct cables then you can control the scope from the software (Starry night) which is pretty good once you have the scope set up.
I just prefered the ease, images, etc of the Refractor :)

The ETX 125 is something I'm considering. Can you see deep sky stuff fairly well? What's it like pointing the system at something like Andromeda or towards the explosion in Orions belt.
 
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