Telescopes (Meade ETX 70 & Skylux) in Lidl Monday 22nd N

Hi Sizzzzzle,
Welcome to the website! Hope you feel at home here.
You raised some valid points and, to be honest, there's no easy answer.
There's pros and cons to everything and this is no exception.
I have a goto scope and love it. I find it very useful to find the various targets around the sky and it provides lots of information about each object. However, some people feel that you'd learn more if you had to find the target manually without the assistance of a computer.
As for astrophotography, neither scope is the perfect answer. If your looking for a first scope, my advice is to forget about astrophotography and just focus ion the visual side of things. If you can't see what you're pointed at or don't understand what your looking at, there's little point in taking an image of it - that's just my opinion anyway.
The ETX has the advantage of been very portable. I intend in travelling to the solar eclipse in 2006 in Turkey. For this trip, this scope would fit the bill perfectly as it's small and compact and could be brought on as hand luggage. The other scope would be alot longer and bulkier. The ETX will track objects across the sky which is handy as it saves you nudging the scope all the time.
Personally, if you can afford the ETX, my advice would be to go for it. If you can't afford it, the skylux is also a fine instrument.
Neither instrument will disappoint.

Clear skies,

Cathy - both scopes seem to be value for money (ie you get what what you pay for) and the other folks on the board seem to think they're good starter scopes (I've no experience of them myself). Pay what you can afford. If it means beans on toast for a couple of weeks and you're prepared to economise, then it'll be worth it all the more. Besides, you could always chew on one of the rucksack straps....

Dave

ps - when I was at Uni, I lived on sugar puffs and black coffee for two weeks!

pps - if you choose the more expensive scope, I'll send you some cheese to grate over the beans - free

Hi all,
Regarding computer control, you can use Starry night with if, you might need to download the telescope driver from
ascom-standards.org/
I use Ascom to drive the 12" and it does a perfect job, from what I can se it will also drive the ETX amoungst many others.
It looks like skymap will also drive the scope.

As for the PC cable, do not just go and plug in the serial port of your PC to the AUX port, you'll blow the controller, you might want to have a look at this.

www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/2004/494-506.html

The problem is that the autostar 494 controller (which as far as I can see is this one) does not have a built in serial port. The "other" autostar (which is the well know autostar for the LX90, LX200) does have a serial port but isnt the one on offer here.
If its not a 494, then is a simple cable which can be easily made up, I made up one for my currect scope.

For people who are starting, I think this is a great starter scope, if only these were around 15-20 years ago. I wouldnt bother with photography until your well used to looking through it.

For those who aren't, its a very portable, throw over your sholder second scope, great for holidays and various eclipses that will be happening over the next few years.

Not been readibly able to plug it into a PC is not an issue for me, the whole idea is thats its portible, I'm not going to be carry a laptop around with it, of couse there is the upload of new objects like comets to be considered.

Fit a red-dot finder on the ETX-70, use Auto-Star to locate the object and then just align my C8 to the Red dot. My C8 can then track from there.
Would this work...would two scopes put too much of an error and I might not find the object. Do red-dot finders actually project an Red dot that I could locate :

Unfortunately, this will not work, the new etx red dot finder does not contain a high power laser which puts a dot in the sky, what it does have a a small lazer which is projected onto a piece of tranparent plastic, you then look through it and and allign the red dot on the transparent plastic to the background image in the sky.

IF you got one of those fancy hand laser pointers and stuck it on the ETX70, then it would work

Thanks Dave

I thought it sounded too silly to work :lol:

How much are those lazer thingys?

When will Lidl stock those I wonder? :idea:

Conor

When will Lidl stock those I wonder?

not likley!

www.betapointer.com sell the 5mv green ones.

Cheers,
~Al