Advice on buying a scope

Greetings,

Having been around the skywatching game for some years I thought it time I
bought a better scope - something to accompany me into my dotage.

Yes I want to view deep sky and yes want to use a CCD. Want GOTO but not GPS
and auto time as I have a very nice Garmin GPS unit. Unit does not have be
portable. I very much like the Schmidt-Cassegrains for their all purpose
usage.

Seems there fore that I am looking at a Meade LX200 10inch ( and having to
put up with purchasing a GPS I don't need) or a Celestron C-11SGT (XLT)
which seems to offer GOTO, control via laptop and have a bloody great 11inch
corrector. I have heard very good and bad things about Meades, but nothing
at all about Celestron, or am I missing another option?

Any help payable with a 'virtual' beer.

First I need to admit Meade bias, my LX-90 has performed well for the last
four years, apart from a little teething trouble which required sending the
scope back to the shop. Since then it's been perfect.
Have you considered the new LX-90 10" or 12"? Just a thought.

As for Celestron, they're pretty much the same as Meade. I know someone
who's got a NexStar 8i, and it happy with the scope. However, they had a
real fight with David Hinds to get all the bits of the scope, as they didn't
seem interested in sorting out the problem. It took about 6 months to get
the tripod for the scope! Even though it was paid for!!!!!!

Both the Meade and Celestron scope offer control via serial port, and most
programs offer native support for these popular scopes.

As for missing an option, how about Orion? They offer a goto system for
their scopes. I think there's also a couple of others as well. Possibly
SkyWatcher with an EQ6 mount?

Hope this helps a little

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com

"Paul Davenport" wrote in message
...
Greetings,

Having been around the skywatching game for some years I thought it time I
bought a better scope - something to accompany me into my dotage.

Yes I want to view deep sky and yes want to use a CCD. Want GOTO but not
GPS
and auto time as I have a very nice Garmin GPS unit. Unit does not have
be
portable. I very much like the Schmidt-Cassegrains for their all purpose
usage.

Seems there fore that I am looking at a Meade LX200 10inch ( and having to
put up with purchasing a GPS I don't need) or a Celestron C-11SGT (XLT)
which seems to offer GOTO, control via laptop and have a bloody great
11inch
corrector. I have heard very good and bad things about Meades, but nothing
at all about Celestron, or am I missing another option?

Any help payable with a 'virtual' beer.



I'm obviously looking at the same telescopes as you are, I'm upgrading from
a Meade LX10.
My list has narrowed down to Meade 10" LX200 GPS, Celestron C9.25/11 Nexstar
GPS or ASGT or new CPC (when they appear).

If you look around for advice you'll find equal comments on Meade and
Celestron (bit like Canon and Nikon in cameras) as they are the biggest
manufacturers. Meade seem to get more knockers mainly on quality control but
you'll find many who like them.

Looking at www.dhinds.co.uk you'll see the Nexstar range reduced to be
replaced by the CPC's. The Advanced series looks a bit more basic but users
seem happy with it, and it doesn't have the fork design which might be more
flexible for mounting other units on the mount if that's of interest to you.

Meade also have the LX90 10" and 12" LNT units out soon, but I get the
impression the mount accuracy isn't as good as the LX200.

Difficult isn't it.

"Paul Davenport" wrote in message
...
Greetings,

Having been around the skywatching game for some years I thought it time I
bought a better scope - something to accompany me into my dotage.

Yes I want to view deep sky and yes want to use a CCD. Want GOTO but not
GPS
and auto time as I have a very nice Garmin GPS unit. Unit does not have
be
portable. I very much like the Schmidt-Cassegrains for their all purpose
usage.

Seems there fore that I am looking at a Meade LX200 10inch ( and having to
put up with purchasing a GPS I don't need) or a Celestron C-11SGT (XLT)
which seems to offer GOTO, control via laptop and have a bloody great
11inch
corrector. I have heard very good and bad things about Meades, but nothing
at all about Celestron, or am I missing another option?

Any help payable with a 'virtual' beer.



My experiences with a local Celestron dealer haven't been favourable.
Experiences with a few Meade dealers have been quite good. Celestron factory
in the US are contactable by email and are quite responsive but Meade on the
otherhand seem to favour ignoring the end customer and leave after sales
queries and issues to the middleman/dealer. I also have backlash issues with
the 2 celestron mounts I own compared to my LX90. The LX90's tracking
accuracy is also far better than the 2 Celestron mounts. Meade also seem to
have more accessories and if you're going to be imaging, the Meade DSI and
LPI integrate directly with the Autostar hansets and software whereas they
do not support Celestron for autoguiding or drizzle though. I'm not familiar
with the C-11SGT's functionality, backlash or tracking though.

Not sure how good your own GPS is without an interface to your intended
purchase but the GPS funtionality isn't a must have.

Hope this serves to confuse you more ;-))

Regards


Chris