Are the mirrors in the Meade 12.5" generally pretty good? I

Hi:

Amazingly good, actually. When I bought one back in 1994 I was expecting
something similar to the Coulter Odyssey I. Nope. One look at Jupiter with the
Meade and I was blown away. Yes, you will have to do some work to optimize the
scope. The most important thing is replacing the nylon azimuth and altitude
bearing pads with Teflon. Magic Sliders work fine. The plastic focuser is also
a candidate for early replacement--though the 1.25" version is useable...the 2"
is pretty horrible. Some also shipped with 30mm finders...you'll certainly want
to replace one of these with a 50mm finder and/or Telrad. Finally, you'll
probably want to rig a simple balance weight system of some kind. As most folks
know, I ain't exactly a dob kinda guy, but I have very fond memories of my
Meade 12.5.

OTOH, I've heard some very good things about the GS. If you like dobs, I don't
think you can go wrong either way...though the GS probably will require
considerably less fine tuning.




Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
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