what about mead?

[Bluknghtv]

guys, wondering how the meads are for astrophotog? Have any of you with them had issues with warranty or problems? I did read about the company not being forth right with problems that have arose and getting things done under warranty. Iv'e noticed good prices on a certain site for meads in the 10-12 inch

[casstony]

Meade telescopes can be good or poor just like Celestron. What type of astrophotograpy are you interested in doing?

[Bluknghtv]

DSO, planets, nebulae. I will be using my canon zooms as well on certain things. I sort of got a shot of the Orion neb a few weeks ago with my canon 500mm F4 stacking some but not enough plus no tracking

[Merlin66]

I’ve used Meade SCT’s for many years, 8”,10” and 12”.....
They performed very well, no issues, no drama.
I agree with Tony there are good and bad in ever product range....

[redbeard]

A Meade LX200 GPS or LX200 ACF in 10” is a great scope that you can use.
You will also need a good quality wedge if you get the Meade tripod or you can get an eq mount for the tube.

Don’t get the lx90 version, too basic.

Good luck

[casstony]

A few points:

Since you're starting out, the best way to go would be to buy an equatorial mount such as the Skywatcher AZ-EQ6, then take DSO/nebulae shots on that with your current camera and lenses. You can also purchase a refractor to use for DSO's but you need to stay with shorter focal lengths at first, say up to 600mm.

You can start out with good polar alignment and no guiding and see how you go with shorter focal lengths (the shorter the focal length, the easier it will be). You'll need to start guiding at some point, especially as the focal length increases.

A meade 10" SCT tube would be nice for planetary imaging and for visual use. The 12" is very heavy.

Don't even think about DSO imaging with the SCT until you've got experience at shorter focal lengths with camera lenses or refractors.

[Peter Ward]

Meade or Celestron offer pretty good bang for buck IMHO.

BUT..their fork mounts are hopelessly underengineered..and GEM’s not much better.

Don’t discount putting a Meade or Celestron OTA on a quality mount (eg Losmandy, Taka, AP, Bisque) as an excellent avenue to high quality narrow field imaging.