Meade lx90 12" LNT - opinions?

Im looking to move up (or is that over from) my 12" Revelation Dob. Im considering the meade lx90 12" Lnt. From what i have read/seen it seems to be good. Has anyone got one here.
Specifically, i want to get a Dsi and follow along the the long path curently headed my Dave Mc.
Any scope you guys think might be better suited for me, it has to be 12"+, as i dont want to step down aperture wise.
Its £2549 in Skyview optics in UK.
The only thing that I might consider is a large 20"+ dob, but i dont see any sellers in the UK
.
Im trying to gather all my info together ... help.
Steve.

I've never heard bad thinks about it... And if you trust the new Meade ads in the usual mags, you can hardly lose on quality. And that said, recent messages on the net show that Meade's customer service is improving and there's a lot of happy-ending stories out there.

The DSI - what can I say. As a starting CCD, you really can't go wrong. But beware, it'll have you wanting more and more and more and....

12" is a good choice - with that you'll get the DSO's in good detail. The DSI chip is small though so in order to expand the field of view, you should consider probably a 3.3 reducer - meade or celestron seems to be the de facto standard. They're about 120 dollars if if I remember rightly.

With autostar suite you'lll get full advantage of the mosaic option - the software will control the scope for you - point and click, wait, and hey presto - a completed mosaic just as the kettle boils

Hope this illuminates your choice a little more...

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Dave, would this scope track reasonably accurately?

Hi Steve - I don't have any personal knowledge of the LX90 and its tracking performance but:

1. It comes with the LX200 tripod mount (sturdy and transportable)
2. PEC can be quantified and then reduced (if you use the scope in polar mode)
3. The fork mount is touted as 'rock-solid'

Sounds fair enough. I'd imagine that it would give you good enough tracking to give you decent images - if you wanted to do seriosly long exposures, you'd need a guidescope and ccd guider - but that's the same whatevr scope you choose.

Just one more thing - PEC will only work in polar mode. I'm not familiar enough with fork mounts but that sounds to me like you need a wedge to do polar-mode imaging in order to avail of PEC. Wedges are available though I'm not sure of the price. I think Dave Lillis and Michael O'Connel have them...

Of course, you don't absolutely need a wedge - you could image with this scope out of the box. And autostar suite software with the DSI will take care of field rotation for you (you always get this with Alt-Az mounts).

I'd say get your feet wet first for a few months while saving up for a wedge. Unless Meade offer a good deal and throw a wedge in at a nominal price...

I'm sure Dave L and Michael O'C would give you further advice on their personal experiences of Meade 'scopes. I think Bill H has an 8" LX90 but he's busy and not been around for a while.

HTH

Dave

Hi,
I have a 12" LX200 classic (as you can see from the avatar) and with some tweaking and care and meticulous balancing you can get good images out of it. Since you mention tracking, I presume you'll try some astrophotography. I can tell you now that there are some reservation about the 12"lx90 on thw web, mainly because its based on the 8" lx90 mount.
Also, many consider ther 12" lx200 mount just about adaquate if not on the brink of been underpowered for the 12", I NEVER run mine at full speed, infact I ALWAYS select the slowest slew speed when I use it. As the lx90 mount is less robust, you can imagine its even more problem prone with a 12" tube wrt stability and vibration.
Both mounts are fine for the 8" scopes they originally came from, a 12" lx90 would be a fine visual scope, planetary imageing is not so tracking dependent so that would be fine, but deepsky imaging is where you'll feel the pain.
Just my 2 cents.

Dave - when you say 'mount' do you mean the tripod?

The LX90 12" comes with the LX200 tripod, according to Meade...

If its the electronics beneath the forks but above the tripod head that you refer to, then that's a fair point that Steve will need to consider, especially for photography...

Cheers

Dave