In light of the posts about Meade quality, I feel I must come to thier defense, at least as far as optical quality is concerned...
I was not surprised to see that thier ETX line of telescopes had dodged the optical quality portion of the bashings.
These telescopes have a large, loyal following, despite quirky drives, limited aperture, and plastic components!
Todd Gross wrote that his ETX-90 had the best optics of any compound telescope he had seen!
My ETX-90 M is also blessed with excellent optics...it splits Castor and E-Lyra easily before it gets to 80x, seems to find a shadow transit every time I point it at Jupiter, and on the best nights, it typically runs out of light on solar system objects before it degrades it's image, usually around 180x-200x.
The ETX-125 OTA I had was even better!
I could use 190x on an average night, and better nights had me using 200-300x on Saturn, which would show a pale yellow ball, and a razor-sharp Cassini division. I once had this OTA mounted to a pier designed for a reflector at a star party. The adults had to pearch on thier knees to look through it, due to the low eyepiece height. All through the night, I noticed the same people kept coming back, despite scuffing thier knees, just for another look! Like the 90, this telescope would run out of light before it would break down, usually north of 300x!
BTW, the eyepieces I used were standard Orion Plossls, in 12.5mm, 10mm, 7.5mm sizes, and a Vixen 7mm Ortho, along with circle-T 9mm and 6mm Orthos, nothing too fancy...
My claims are not unique, just read some observation reports on the ETX (mighty) sight...seems the 105mm also is an exceptional optical instrument.
All this, of course, is just MHO, but I have owned, sold, and looked through alot of telescopes (too), and I have to admit that the one telescope I could never part with is my little ETX-90...
Chris
I was not surprised to see that thier ETX line of telescopes had dodged the optical quality portion of the bashings.
These telescopes have a large, loyal following, despite quirky drives, limited aperture, and plastic components!
Todd Gross wrote that his ETX-90 had the best optics of any compound telescope he had seen!
My ETX-90 M is also blessed with excellent optics...it splits Castor and E-Lyra easily before it gets to 80x, seems to find a shadow transit every time I point it at Jupiter, and on the best nights, it typically runs out of light on solar system objects before it degrades it's image, usually around 180x-200x.
The ETX-125 OTA I had was even better!
I could use 190x on an average night, and better nights had me using 200-300x on Saturn, which would show a pale yellow ball, and a razor-sharp Cassini division. I once had this OTA mounted to a pier designed for a reflector at a star party. The adults had to pearch on thier knees to look through it, due to the low eyepiece height. All through the night, I noticed the same people kept coming back, despite scuffing thier knees, just for another look! Like the 90, this telescope would run out of light before it would break down, usually north of 300x!
BTW, the eyepieces I used were standard Orion Plossls, in 12.5mm, 10mm, 7.5mm sizes, and a Vixen 7mm Ortho, along with circle-T 9mm and 6mm Orthos, nothing too fancy...
My claims are not unique, just read some observation reports on the ETX (mighty) sight...seems the 105mm also is an exceptional optical instrument.
All this, of course, is just MHO, but I have owned, sold, and looked through alot of telescopes (too), and I have to admit that the one telescope I could never part with is my little ETX-90...
Chris
There's something on the Moon! 8O
