I also read the incredible amount of negative commentary that appears in this  group. It almost stopped me from acquiring a 12″ LX200. Almost. I now own thw  12″. the delivery took place in less than 14 days, the scope ha performed to  specifications. It is one of the best telescopes I have owned. I’ve been doing  astronomy since I was 13. I’ve built my own telescopes and refurbished many  used telescopes (Celestron C11, C90, C5, Cave Astrolas etc.). This is my first  new scope. I’m glad I bought it.          I agree that quality can be improved across the industry, however, the Meade  quality, mechanical and optical is right up with the best that I have used and  owned over the last 41 years. It exceeds my 1981 C11 ( own of the best years  optically for Celestron) and approaches my 1979 Cave 10″ f16 classical  cassegrain.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this has been hashed out in SAA many times  over the past few years. Your complaints follow for all products, not just  telescopes.    Have you checked the prices of other US items in Britain? Everything costs  more in Europe. When I was over there two years ago, the price in pounds  was the same as the price here in dollars. A book that costs $6 in the US  cost 6 pounds in the UK. A toy that cost $20 here, cost 20 pounds there.  (This excludes mass market items, those that are imported in a large enough  quantities.)    The local warrantee/repair centers are paid for by local sales. They are  not free. A company decides on its repair budget by the number of items sold  in a given region. If they only sell one or two, then they need a much smaller  center than if they sell hundreds. The alternative is to either have EXTREMELY  long wait times for repairs (because they only have one serviceman for all of  Europe) or to require that you ship all items for repair back to the US (at  your cost!)    We have the very same problem over here with electronic and photo gear from  Japan. We can purchase items at a greatly reduced price directly from SE Asia,  but the warrantees will not apply for these “grey market” items.  There is  often the same “factor of two” price difference. I believe that this also  applies to the various telescopes and accessories from SE Asia. In addition,  there are import restrictions on the number of items that an individual can  bring back with them when they travel.

Six weeks waiting for a LX10, only to find this brand new  instrument had a major collimation fault. So back to the shop for an  exchange unit, this time the optics were spot on, but the motor was not  responding.  Fortunately, I had chosen a good shop to purchase my Meade.  They spent nearly all morning tracing the fault, and finally had to  exchange the motor assembly for the one I had returned.  Two LX10’s one  faulty optics the other faulty motor, both of which were needed to get  one functionally correct unit.  The same day I decided to fit the  declination motor, and yes, you have guessed it, I could not do it, one  of the two securing holes had not been threaded correctly.                  Quite honesty I am beginning to wonder if Meade was the right  choice, certainly the Stockport Binocular and Telescope Centre was the  right shop to buy it from, they could not have been more helpful, BUT is  this really the Rolls Royce of Telescopes?          Comments please.

For those who don’t have access to sci.astro.amateur, here is an abbreviated  posting from the noted Brian Skiff, who attended the Texas Star Party last  week (and gave an interesting talk as well):    “I spent four nights/three days at TSP (Wednesday pm through Sunday am,  15-19 May).  There were about 650 attendees (nearly a full house), with a  full program of viewing and talks plus plenty of west Texas fellowship…  ..By strolling around the two telescope fields I was able to look through  a variety of instruments at whatever their owners happened to be looking at.  I was pleased that no one was aimed at the standard showpiece objects (M51,  M57, M13, omega Centauri) when I came up, but instead were doing Herschel  400  lists and the like.  So I viewed instead mag. 11 and 12 galaxies, which from  a dark site show plenty of detail even in a 25cm telescope.       Not a one of the telescopes larger than 30cm (12 inches) aperture was  sharp, mostly suffering from astigmatism.  A very compact 63cm f/3 Newtonian  being demonstrated by a “brand name” mirror-maker suffered the same fate,  despite his claim of having spent 200 hours grinding and figuring it.  This  particular instrument was also an excellent demonstration of why shielding  from stray light is critical for these fast telescopes.  The field was grey  and washed out because so much scattered light was getting into the eyepiece  from every direction.  Blech!  The two best telescopes I saw other than  high-  end refractors were (are you ready?) an old Meade 25cm f/6 “research grade”  Newtonian, and a 25cm Meade Schmidt-Cassegrainian.  Some of the subarcsecond  seeing was going on when I viewd through these, so it was easy to discern  their optical quality.  Both had sharp, contrasty optics and did their  owners  proud….”    Frank Nowling and I both had our 10″ LX200’s set up in the area of Larry  Mitchell’s 36″ and other Houston-area scopes where Brian spent much of his  time observing.  Would like to think that one of the folks coming by in the  dark for views through either Frank’s scope or mine was the above Mr. Skiff!    Anyway, a “keeper” to throw back at folks who bash our LX200’s before  looking through them first.  It’s one thing to know personally from critical  viewing that your scope has excellent optics; especially gratifying when an  “expert” endorses if not yours then its clone!

I don’t know what planet Steve lives on but I would not rely on his comments alone.  I have done several THOUSAND dollars worth of business with one NYC firm who  advertises heavily in Astronomy and Sky & Telescope. I have NEVER had a problem with  them and have been treated courteously on the phone. Granted they are very busy and  tend to be curt sometimes. There is another NYC dealer who I will not deal with  because they are rude and obnoxious. And no, this would not be my luck since I  have had tens of transactions with this company for several telescopes, and lots of  eyepieces, books and other accessories.    As far as pricing, where else can you get a brand-new Tele Vue Genesis for $1720?  I doubt anywhere except a large company who deals in large quantities. If you want  a safe fuzzy feeling then go with Pocono who are very nice and open to questions  of all sorts. And you get what you pay for…they sell the Genesis(last I knew)  for around $1870. And if you’re an Orion junkie you’ll pay $2100(you’re subsidizing  their 30-day refund policy, technical phone support and pretty catalog).    To each their own buy I, for one, am not going to pay nearly $400 dollars more  than I have to. I have other similar pricings for other telescopes and accesories  I have purcahsed. These are facts, not the “gut feelings” you will hear from some  people.

I am very new to amatuer astronomy and I have been researching the different  telescopes that are available.  It seems that I would get more scope for my  dollar by buying a reflector telescope.  And, I guess this makes sense  because there are less optics involved here than are used in refractor or  Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes.   With this in mind, I was wondering about  the Orion Skyview Deluxe 6″ EQ Newtonian (#9403) telescope.  It is a package  deal that includs a tripod, equatorial mount and the scope all for $599.  This scope seems to be unique in that fact that it uses a parabolic mirror  instead of a sperical mirror.    What are your overall feelings about Orion products?   Does anybody have  experience with this particular product?  If so, I would be very curious to  hear your comments about it.    Thanks a lot for your thoughts and comments.

Congratulations on the win….I think.  Telescopes of that size hardly  seem like something one would blindly bid on, especially if it is indeed  a 10″ LX200.  But, if it works for you, great!!  As for the “silver  optics group” thing, I am no expert but it sounds like a hype in order  to make the scope sell quicker.  It also sounds like the words of  someone who doesn’t really know anything about telescopes.  The silver  likely has something to do with the mirror coating.    Sorry for being so negative.  I am just a sceptic after seeing so many  lame things on ebay.  I sincerely hope you get a good scope for whatever  you paid.    Regards,

Here’s some general information – you maybe already  know all of this but I’ll give it to you anyway….    The f/4 Schmidt-Newtonian is a very “fast” scope. On the plus  side, that means a wide field with images that are “bright” from  a photographic (or CCD) standpoint. The corrector plate should  help cut come near the edge of the field down to about 1/2 or  1/3 of what it would be in a normal Newtonian. I personally like  the fast f-ratio because I like the wide field, shorter exposure  times for CCD imaging, and in general the faster scope should  be great for deep-sky imaging.    On the minus side, the f/4 is going to have a large secondary  mirror which will decrease contrast. The corrector plate will  be subject to dew problems, and the short f-ratio is going  to require more magnification to get a decent image size.  Also, coma will not be non-existent. The faster scopes will  have some coma no matter what.    Now, an f/10 SCT is nice for planets and the moon  due to the larger image sizes (relative to the f/4). Another  nice thing with the f/10 SCT is a smaller secondary mirror  so less light will be blocked and you’ll probably get better  contrast. The f/10 means longer exposure times for imaging,  though. You can get a focal reducer, however, that will  effectively reduce the f-ratio to [typically] f/6.3 or f/3.3.    Other than that, I think the rest of the story just depends  on the manufacturer’s ability to produce optics that are  free from flaws and well-figured. While I have heard  some complaints, my experience with Meade telescopes  is that their optics are typically quite good (as is true with  others like Celestron as well). I actually worry more about  the electronics in the mount than the optics. You didn’t ask this  but I’ll tell you that I prefer the German-Equatorial mount style  of the LXD55’s to the fork mounts on the LX200’s. Both work,  but I don’t like dealing with field de-rotators and over-priced  wedges that can’t quite hold the load  (based on my experience  this summer drift-aligning a 12″ LX200 with a wedge).    Well, I don’t know if I helped you or not, but there’s my 2-cents.    Clear Skies and Big Telescopes!

After reading everything on the net I could about buying a FIRST telescope,  I called the nearest dealer to see if he had what I wanted, a Celestron Star  Hopper 4.5.  Well the guy makes me feel like a complete fool.  “Do you know  the 5 laws of thermal dynamics”?  Ect..  Well he goes on to say that since  this is the South there is this thing know as DEW…do I  know what DEW is?  Ahh, yeah I do, thanks.  Well DEW covers everything at nite here so he only  sells telescopes with fiberglass tubes.  He goes on to tell me that the  Celestron telescope has a cardboard tube (its really aluminum).  Next he  tells me that he is a Takahashi dealer and that his scopes start at $1000.  I’d like to spend a third of that for my first scope.    Any thoughts on a good scope that can handle dew for $300-$400?  And aren’t  there heaters for dissipating dew?    Thanks!

Hi Jan,              Some idea of price range you are willing to spend would help to  provide more concise direction, but this is an overall guide that I hope  will provide some help.  Stay away from telescopes that advertised by power (i.e. 600X Telescope!!)  and are usually available in department stores or variety stores. These  scopes are almost worthless and cost about the same as a decent Dobsonian  scope.  Normally you’d want to get the largest aperture you can afford, that is the  biggest diameter to obtain the most resolution and light gathering, but in  this case you have stated that he want’s specifically to look at planets and  the moon.  The moon is not a real big challenge for most scopes of varying type, but  for planets normally a refractor is the scope of choice, and it will also  enhance views of the moon as compared to an equal quality reflector.  Unfortunately a ‘good’ refractor is not as inexpensive as the various  designs/configurations of Newtonian systems, and even more expensive than  the compound reflector designs.  I would recommend that you look in your local newspaper for announcements of  local “star parties” held by your local astronomy club. These are usually  announced in the paper during the preceding week of a new moon weekend (as  shown on a calendar).  The ability to get some hands on experience and some local direction as  where to buy can be a big help.  The operative word in the preceding paragraphs is “local”. <smile>  In summary, I would suggest a refractor of 4″ (or better) diameter and a  focal length of 800mm or more, try to get one that is color corrected  (termed apochromatic). A Meade or Celestron refractor would be a good choice  for a first lunar/planetary scope, but if price is no object a Takahashi or  Astro Physics are at the premium end of commercially available scopes.  I do believe that once involved he will want to also look at deep space  objects and if that is possible then, it is very hard to beat a decent  Dobsonian. For a few hundred dollars an 8″ to 10″ dob can be had with a  decent eyepiece of about 25mm.  This is truly an easy scope to use for all objects and with a one to one  finder like a Telrad it’s basically a “point and view” set up. A smaller  scope called a finder scope can really round out the capabilities of a dob.  Once again do not buy a scope that takes plastic .965 dia. eyepieces. They  will do nothing but turn off the user to astronomy because of their low  quality.  You nay want to check the phone book and see if their any shops that cater  to astronomy in your area.  You may also pick up a copy of Sky and Telescope or Astronomy at your local  news stand for some additional help.  Best of luck in your search,