Help! 210 questions

Hello All,

This is my first post to the Astromart forum. I was hoping if anyone can answer my questions. I am considering buying a Mewlon 210 (would like the 250 but it is out of my budget at the moment) and a goto eq mount.

My current setup is a LX90 8” EMC and a couple of Naglers.

My question is how different will the views be through the 210 compared to the 8” LX90. I am 99% a visual observer but would like the option to dabble in astrophotography in the future. My general observing is planetary and Nebula.

My second question is what is a good goto mount for the 210. I am thinking $2500 and under (preferably under).

Thank you in advance for the advice. I think my main issue is that as the 210 has similar aperture to the 8” Meade, I do want to see a reasonably significant upgrade in image.

Cheers,
Richard

Depends on what your LX is like. And what you are referring to as far as "better". This was my personal experience with similar situation. I had a superb C8. I rated it perhaps at 1/5.5 or better ptv at the ep. Perhaps 1/6. I was trying to be conservative, but I know it was better than 1/5. It was also perfectly collimated which is critical for SCTs. Now my buddy that I observed with ALOT had a 210. The 210 was subtly better on doubles, and planetary contrast. Deep sky was subtly better as well, but I had an old orange uncoated C8.

Now another gent that we observed with alot had a M10. The 210 blew it away on stars and planets and that was cooled and collimated as well. The M10 was obviously better on deepsky due to aperture. I also owned 2 C11's that would not compare to the 210 or the C8 for stars/moon/planets. I had both my C11's cooled and collimated at ultra high mags.

So if you have a mediocre SCT, then the 210 would handidly outperform it. If you have a truely Diffraction limited 8, then I think like me you will see subtle difference. For me, it was hard to justify the 210 price difference.

Good luck,
Kevin

I can say that my Mewlon 210 blows my 8" Meade LX200 Classic out of the water.

I have never seen a steady view of stars through my LX200. With the M210, stars were a lot steadier, and (though this is a faint memory, as I have not used my M210 in a while, being more of an imager than visual) the Double-Double was a clean split.

A more recent view through the M210 (around February '07) had it resolving the E component of the Trapezium without breaking a sweat. The F component was even winking in and out. I've probably seen the E component of the Trap once with my LX200. And even then it was winking in and out.

OTOH, my particular Mewlon (I bought it used, so this may be a factor) seemed to need almost daily tweaking of collimation, compared with the LX200 which just stays and stays.

Eric