Anyone own a Meade telescope?

n3crius · 19 Jun 2006 at 22:52

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!

Brizzles · 19 Jun 2006 at 23:42

Buy a mirror and look at Uranus ?

Cheers,

Mark

cleanbluesky · 19 Jun 2006 at 23:54

mrdbristol said:
Buy a mirror and look at Uranus ?

Did you take a picture of what you found there and put it in your sig?

WHAT!!! · 20 Jun 2006 at 00:12

mrdbristol said:
Buy a mirror and look at Uranus ?

Cheers,

Mark

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

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.

nikebee · 20 Jun 2006 at 00:24

cleanbluesky said:
Did you take a picture of what you found there and put it in your sig?

LOL

no help from me, but... i will be watching the thread as i too am interested in this kind of stuff and wouldn't mind getting into it

Pinter75 · 20 Jun 2006 at 02:39

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)

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.

locutus12 · 20 Jun 2006 at 05:12

Pinter75 said:
*snip*

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

Robdav · 20 Jun 2006 at 09:14

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

cleanbluesky · 20 Jun 2006 at 10:22

Pinter75 said:
<snip>

Good moon shots

SIB · 20 Jun 2006 at 11:25

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

Pinter75 · 20 Jun 2006 at 11:39

One thing to note is that if you want a GoTo scope, the new Celestron SLT's have the new 3 star align. No need to align it to north anymore. Point it at 3 stars and then it will work out where in time and space it is :-)

You can also hook these up to your PC for a simple point and click night out.

http://www.celestron.com/c2/category.php?CatID=8

http://store.starrynightstore.com/stniproplve5.html

n3crius · 20 Jun 2006 at 13:51

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.