Meade versus Celestron?

Yep, so so many options when it comes to SCT scopes. It's probably going to take me six months to make up my mind!

One issue with the Meade fork mount. It looks cool but from what I've read its useless for astrophotography and the way to go is an EQ mount. Is that right?

Also, when it comes to buying Meades/Celestrons - has anyone ordered them directly from American websites and had them shipped over? They seem to be cheaper than those sold by Irish suppliers but would I get stung for importation taxes?

When it comes to buying from the US you have to add about 25% of the cost of the scope and the shipping, to the price, also I believe that the warranty does not extend to Ireland when bought outside the EU, I wait to be corrected if I'm wrong, worth considering when buying.

There are many great retailers in Ireland and the EU, and it might be cheaper when the extra cost is added to the US price.

Paul

Thanks Paul, was just checking that there's not a "cheap" option when it comes to Meades/Celestron and I'm sure the main Irish suppliers are doing there best to sell at the cheapest rate but sometimes you can get better deals abroad...

What's the secondhand market like - do SCTs come up often?

Hi
no meade/celestron supplier will sell you a scope across the atlantic, you can also kiss your warrenty goodbye if it breaks down aswell, so this is not an option unless youre willing to accept the risk. I wouldnt!

A EQ mount is always going to win hands down over any fork mount for long exposure astrophotography, you can do deepsky imaging with a fork but it is more work. Planetary and lunar imaging is not so troublesome. Ive taken some simple enough shots using the 12" fork on a wedge, all in my flickr account if you want to have a look.
You need a wedge for a fork scope for long exposure astrophotography,making it more susceptible to vibration and wind, if you have an observatory setup then you can avoid such problems.

There is also the situation where in a fork situation, the tube cannot ever be taken off the forks for transportation, the forks and tube are a single unit. For an EQ mount, the tube can be detached. on the other side of the coin, some say that an eq mount is more hassle for observing as you need to polar align it and watch out for the meridian flip .

In the secondhand market, you can get a really good bargin, only thing is again you have no warrenty, if it breaks down, then its going to cost you. Also, if buying secondhand, you'd want to be fairly sure the motors and electronics were looked after and the the drives were not abused. You dont want to end up with a scope with grinded down gears or with electronics on the brink of been on the fritz.
Having said that,most astronomers look after their gear, so you could make a killing going secondhand, freeing up money for eyepieces....

OPT Telescopes in the States will sell you Meade and Celestron gear from their clearance and second hand range but as Dave pointed out no warranty cover plus about $400 shipping then import duty.

I've done enough imaging with the Meade 10" to know the pitfalls. Near zenith they are pretty stable but backlash is the main problem. You usually loose some of your sub frames due to backlash even with autoguiding. If you keep exposure times short you can get away with only loosing a few. Think the worm gear has an 8 minute period at which point I often got a small jump off target then the autoguiding had to fight the backlash which meant a frame loss. Still capable of getting some nice images but a small field of view. Good for planets and lunar plus astrometry/photometry work and supernova searching. Meade tend to hold good collimation from my own experience since I've never needed to adjust it.

Mine plus accessories is up for sale on here at less than the cost of an OTA from K Tec.

Hi Dominic,

I can't comment on Meade v Celestron, never having owned a Meade, but the fact that both brands are very successful suggests that both produce good products (and some not so good ones too). When you have a clearer idea of what type of scope and mount you want, you may be able to make decide between brands on the basis of reviews of the competing offerings.

I began with an 80mm f6 refractor (Ascension), then had a 200mm f5 Newtonian (GSO) for a couple of years and recently switched to a 280mm f10 SCT (Celestron), so I have a little experience of the strengths and weakness of different setups (though I have no clue about RC designs). All three were used on an equatorial mount (Celestron CG5) and I agree with the views in this thread that a GEM, while a little more difficult to setup and align, offers greater versatility than an alt az mount and is the better choice if you want to keep the option of astrophotography open. It makes good sense to buy the OTA and the mount as individual items, so that you can change/upgrade either separately if your interests change.

Small refractors excel for wide field observing and imaging; if you aspire to beautiful images of large nebulae, they're the way to go. You seem more interested in larger aperture instruments and that inevitably means smaller fields of view, and more stringent demands on the mount if you wish to image. For example, my 280mm f10 SCT has a maximum fov of approx. 1 degree - the design means that, even with a focal reducer, the fov is limited due to vignetting by the baffle tube. That fov is large enough to image most clusters and galaxies, but the slow focal ratio means that for most targets exposure times will be very long unless a focal reducer is used. Even with a focal reducer the focal length is quite long, so good guiding and a sturdy mount will be needed for low surface brightness targets such as galaxies. On the other hand, imaging bright targets such as planets, double stars or brighter clusters is relatively easy even with a light mount such as the highly portable CG5. The long focal length is a big advantage for imaging small targets such as planets and double stars. As with most things in life, there is no perfect general, solution, what will work best for you will depend on your interests, your resources, and your observing site.

I'm primarily a visual observer and I think that is where larger aperture scopes really shine. Large reflectors are the best value for money, but, above about 250mm, they are unwieldy on equatorial mounts, and the eyepiece is often in an awkward position. SCTs, and related designs, are much more convenient to use. They are much more compact, and are easier to transport, and to place on the mount (SCTs up to 300mm are light enough to lift fairly easily). Also, the viewing positions are much more comfortable and that makes them much more enjoyable to use, as well as allowing you to make more difficult observations. Careful observation of a difficult double star is no problem when you are sitting comfortably at the eyepiece on an SCT, but can be very difficult if you are standing on a stool peering into the eyepiece on a Newt mounted on a GEM. Dobsonian mounts are the way to go with larger Newts.

Unfortunately the greater convenience of an SCT carries a substantially greater price tag. I couldn't justify the cost of a new SCT, but pre-loved ones do come on the market from time to time and that's how I got mine. There is a greater risk when you buy privately, but, as Dave Lillis said, most amateur astronomers are good people, and provided you check out the scope thoroughly before parting with your cash, there is little reason to worry. I have bought loads of stuff second hand and have never had a bad experience. I was quite nervous when buying the C11, but it has worked out great. I'm delighted to have moved to a larger aperture scope that gives more magnification and brighter views, but is actually significantly easier and more enjoyable to use.

The main weaknesses of SCTs are the difficulty of obtaining precise focus and the related problem of mirror shift. Those problems can be solved by replacing the stock focuser with a microfocuser (though that does not eliminate image shift), or by adding a Crayford style or helical focuser. I chose a helical focuser, which gave a significant improvement in ease of use, and this is an upgrade that is definitely worth the extra cost, in my view. It is worth bearing in mind that the cost of accessories, such as a focal reducer, a microfocuser, a 2" diagonal for use with longer focal length eyepieces, and various adapters to connect all the bits together, can be very substantial. You may well find that you spend as much again (over a period of time) on eyepieces and accessories as you did on the scope.

The thoughts above are just one opinion; some of the other posters are much more experienced than me, and everyone has their own particular views and requirements. Take you time and try to get some hands on experience, which is easy if there is a Club near you. You may find the advice on Starizona ( starizona.com/acb/basics/index.aspx ) useful too. Good luck in your search.

Mike