Trying to Decide between a Few Models/Need Advice

We're trying to decide between a few different models and need some advice. Our budget is about $500-$600 at the most (and that must also cover S&H) and we'd like a "Go-To" model, Preferably one like Meads AutoStar GoTo, or at the very least one with something like Orion's Intelliscope, not fully automatic, but it tells you where to dial it to in order to find what your looking for.

The first model we liked which would save money and be a little more portable, though I don't know how it compares to the other models, is the Meade TeleStar DS-2130AT which is made in both a long and short tube versions and this is the long-tube model. It has a Primary Mirror Diameter of 127mm (5.0"), a Focal Length of 1000mm (f/8), and the tube is 38" long.

We also liked the Meade EX series, and have found the
ETX-60AT, ETX-70AT, ETX-80, ETX-90AT easily within our price range, and recently even found a new ETX-125AT that we could get if we pushed our budget a little. I wont go thru the specs on the others but the ETX-125AT has a 138mm (5.43") Primary Mirror Diameter, a 127mm (5.0") Clear Aperture, 1900mm(f/15) Focal Length, and the tube is 36cm (14.2") long.

Recently we were told to look at the Orion XT- Series with the Intelliscope feature. We can easily get the XT-6 and again, if we push our budget a little can get the XT-8. The XT-8 has a 203mm Mirror, 1200mm (f5.9) focal length, with a tube length of 44.5".

We did notice two additional options;

1. we can get the XT-10 Classic within our price range but no Intelliscope and that was important, I don't think you can add it later on this model.

2. We found a used Meade AutoStar mount/tripod where we can get a mount that takes up to a 6.25" diameter tube scope weighing up to 17 pounds which we can get for about $60 and if I understand it correctly would add the AutoStar capabilities to any scope of that size if we could find a good deal on a scope without the mount. I think Orion offers a few tubes less the mount.

Anyways, so these are the ones we have been looking at so far and was wondering how people with more experience though they compared or if anyone had any other suggestions in this price range. One feature that we'd like but I know the Orion doesn't do (and not sure if the AutoStar does) is equatorial tracking (I hope I'm saying that right) where you can connect a camera and set it for longer exposures and the scope will move with the turn of the earth automatically to keep the target centered.

My wife is a school teacher and all of this is primarily for her class, though we will own it and keep it at home for our own use when the class is not using it. It's a small-town school in a poor VERY rural area which was turned into a magnet science school this year in order to improve the science education of the rural kids. The school itself has no telescopes (nor money to get any) and yet expects her to teach a class on astronomy and host an astronomy club, including late evening field trips to a large field on a hill out behind the school for some real telescope work every couple of weeks (yea, when they didn't even have a telescope, I think the state came up with these new requirements and the small district just can't afford such things). So we are buying this on our own and not much budget here, the course books actually suggest a minimum of 3 telescopes for the size class she has but we wouldn't get much telescope if we divided our budget that many times, though that's why our first choice had been the DS-2130AT because we could get 3 of those as refurbished models direct from Meade and stay within our budget but they look small, the numbers 5" primary and 1000mm length looks good but obviously less than the 6" or 8" of the Orion's and I'm not even sure how to guess at the power of the ETX-EC series from Meade, I'm not sure how you can direct-compare the short barreled models like the ETX-125EC to something so large like the XT-6 or XT-8 from Orion, and that's part of what we need help with.


We're hoping to make our purchases by the end of this week at the latest, my wife's curriculum is scheduled and is supposed to already be having their first outdoor evening session THIS WEEK, though she obviously wont make it. They just got in the new program books and a PC program for the classroom called "Starry Night Backyard" last Friday right as school let out and she's already having to teach it this week during the classroom sessions (literally trying to learn it herself as she goes staying one-step ahead of the students).


Thanks in Advance to anyone and everyone who can give us some advice, reviews, or opinions of how these models all compare to each other.

James, here is a thought, if you think you would need the Intelliscoope option, go ahead and get the 6" with the intelliscope, then grab a 4.5" XT classic to go with it, that would give you 2 scopes to use and you will be able to cheat a little off the 6". Now having said that, I think that you would find that it is really not that hard to learn your way around the sky, and grabbing 3 of the 4.5" scopes might be the way to go with the group, or just 2 of the 6" XT classics. Once you get the hang of it, it's a lot easier than you might think.

James
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I Have an Update that I just got from my wife who just called me from her recess duty...

Her principle just came to her and told her that after talking with her on Tuesday about the issue of teaching such a course and hosting an astronomy club when the school owned No Telescopes and even dispite having told her on Wednesday that there were no funds he just told her a few minutes ago that he has taken it up to the district office and on up the school board chain of command and they just let him know that they will be sending three Tasco 60x700 manual telescopes plus one Tasco StarGuide 102x1000 model over from another school and district storage. Some district untility guy should deliver them by the end of school today. PLUS she can have an additional budget of $1,000.00 to get more stuff or to remburse her for anything she's already spent. All she has to do is orer what she wants and turn in the receipts. Her and the astronomy group can still of course host still a booth at the school fair in two weeks to raise additonal funds. She is also still welcome to buy a larger scope on her own if she wants and bring to the school, they wont think it belongs to the school and arrest her if she tries to take it back home at the end of the year (she said that was a joke on his part, apperantly he was laughing and smiling when he said it). She said he was a great principle and has probably been on the phones all week about this behind the scenes even while telling her there wouldn't be any funds to keep her from getting her hopes up.

She is dubious of these Tasco scopes. They are both old and small except for the one, she plans on turning in the receipts from the ones we've already orderd after they arrive if they work out which will leave several hundred which she'll hold to see what happens at the fair. In the meantime she still plans on ordering one nice big one on our dime with evetything nessisary to do the astrophotography.

Well, we placed our order today for the Celestron C8-NGT ($1019), the Celestron accessrory kit will 11 items ($49 with purchace of the scope), and the two adapters for astrophotography, the T-Ring adapter (if I'm saying it right), and the adapter that mates it all to our Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT and will also fit the new XTi that I pre-ordered awhile back for my wifes Christmas gift.

The DS-2031AT AstroStar arrived, It seems like a GREAT scope in itself, I can see what some say about the mount, not a problem for us but could be for kids.
I think I'm gonna take it into the shop where I work (Re: LOTS of nice big toys for fabrication of all kids) and get a couple of the guys to make a kid-proof mount for it. Maybe even ones with short spikes on the bottom that can be driven into the ground (the base would be kinda a heavy metal plate with spikes on the botto to keep them from shifting) and left on site and numbered so that the same scope can always be put back on the same mount in the exact same position. That MAY also help (haven't played with it enough to understand how it really works) the initial aiming each time of the target stars that you use to locate it before the AutoStar system will work.

So now we don't need advice on models, we need advice on "must have" accessories if anyone has any beyond the kit we bought and the camea mount stuff.

OK, Here is an update to our situation, first off thanks to everyone for their advice (and we still need more, read on..) it helped us decided on both the smaller models to let small groups of 2-4 kids use and also on a larger model the whole class will share and will also be the only one outfitted for astrophotograhy and maybe later a CCD color camera if we can find a used one at a good price.

Anyways...

We received the first Meade DS02130AT AutoStar on Friday evening and Saturday morning also orderd a Celestron C8-NGT with the accessory kit, and the mount and t-ring to fit our Canon Rebel XTi camera.
The Celestron is supposed to arrive Wednesday.

We also ordered SEVERAL different books that some people here has suggested. One thing my wife did get from the school this year was a generous "Book" budget
to help build a new science library for the newly remodeled school.

Satuday morning we put the DS2130 together and have been playing with it since, unfortunatally the very beautiful weather that we'd had for over a week turned to heavy clouds and rain shortly before sundown on Saturday and contiuned on through Sunday and this morning... Now it appears to be *starting* to somewhat clear again though it's not supposed to be totally clear again until late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

Anyways, we've of course not been about to see anything extra-terestrial yet but we did play yesterday with aiming it at a line of trees in the far distance using the smallest power eyepiece.

The trouble is that the tree line was upside down AND kinda sideways. If we look at a tall power line tower off in the far distance it looks like it's base is coming out of the upper right corner of the eyepiece at an angle going toward the lower left corner kind of like this / ... Are we doing something wrong or is everything seen through this type of telescope (relecting) always look like that?

Well, the skys turned beautiful tonight, just absoutly clear as could be. So we took the telescope out that we received Saturday and saw ponts of light.
Yup, that was it, just points of light. The same points of light we see without the telescope only now they appear closer, but certainly no more detail.
They're just little lights.

So how do we find anything? We tried the AutoStar and it doesn't seem to point to anything. Of course I'm not sure it's alined right. We're selecting the "Easy" alin and it says start with both the Az and Hz set to the 0 marks (what difference does it make, the tape with the numbers the Hz one is on spings freely around the thing anyways) and point it due north. Which we did. It then moves and says to confirm it's pointing with a certain star centered. None ever is but I move it using the arrow keys until the closest point of light I can find is (who knows if it's the one the telescope is looking for, I'm just finding the closest one). Then it does it again to a different star. Same thing again, none is ever there so I move it to the closest point of light that I can find.

After that (even re-doing it several times) we selected to GOTO neptune, which was the only planet that it didn't seem to think was below the horizon.
Nothing there.

With a telescope with a 5.1" mirror and a 1040mm length we are supposed to see something a little more detailed than a point of light right?

It came with 3 eyepieces and we tried them all, the 25mm the point of light looks futher away, the 2.5mm it looks closer but still just a point of light, and with the one marked 4mm it's just totally dark, we never see anything through that one at all.

The manual that came with the scope is of no use at all and though she ordered a couple of books to keep in her classroom they've not arrived yet, does anyone have any advice for what we're doing wrong?
We hate to waste such a beautiful clear night, especially when she needs to be learning to use these things, but after an hour of trying all we had to show for it was back-aches (we need stools to do this very much).

I haven't read through all the responces, and so this may have been mentioned all ready.

Perhaps, in addition to having the students take a few digital pics of the moon, maybe a couple of the fine astrophotographers here could send you some raw images with instructions on what is done to process them to the final image, and a copy of the final image, that you could use and make available to the students in a class designed to show what goes into processing the images after they are captured to get the fine finished images.

A lab like this could be done on days when the weather does not cooperate for actual under the stars study. This combined with perhaps bringing in an amateur from a local club to show the raw images being captured and the equipment used to capture the images, in the end would be a very good introduction to astrophotography and would not require the large investment that would be required to do images directly.

Add to this a couple 35 MM cameras, a class where the students build a couple barn door trackers, and then some short, barn door guided shots could make for a very good astrophoto experience for the students.

Finally, if you wish, you could add a couple star trails images taken side by side with a barn door tracker tracked image of the same field to demonstrate the earths rotation and finish off the class.

Daren