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I've been trying to get more info on RCX400 for some weeks now. Some things that are worth knowing are: It has fast electronic collimation however, its electronic focus works by a set of differential motors moving the entire front corrector and secondary element arrangement, this means that it MUST be collimated after EVERY focus shift. Not a big problem for the long exposure photographer, who is willing to go to great lengths for image perfection, and in fact is an advantage in these circumstances, but a PITA for casual visual lookers I suspect.
Incidentally, this is also why it has a built in dew heating element in the corrector, as Meade definitely do not want you slinging assorted heavy things off the front of this scope (which is a moving micron precision part).
As Ponders pointed out, no power, no scope; there is no manual useability. It does appear to be quite energy efficient, though getting realistic figures to enable working out of power requirements compared to say, power tank rating and drain time, is not currently possible. I would not expect this to be a scope to be thrown together for a quick hours viewing in the back padock after dinner though.
Neither Meade nor Meade's Aus dealers are currently willing to make any statement regarding drive accuracy and mount stability, apart from claiming that it's good. They also claim older models were good. In all fairness to the Aus dealers, Meade isn't giving them or anybody else the info; not their fault they can't comment. Meade however, must know, and as they're selling it as a serious astrophotography system, should be willing to state drive tracking accuracy limits and expected deviation magnitudes and RATES of tracking deviation. For comparison, I consider that Losmandy mounts can usually be good enough, and that Takahashi are undoubtably good enough for long exposure deep sky imaging (with price saying Losmandy until you win loto).
The mount is considerably beefier and weightier than older models, but it's still alt az fork plus or minus a redesigned eq wedge.
US users so far seem extremely pleased with the optics, once they get over the problems of the unfamiliar focus and collimation requirements, and the images produced are very sharp with none of the nasty asterism the RC scopes usually suffer from due to the secondary support. THe front corrector mod to strict RC design is a winner in that area. There appears little astigmatism, no noticeably chromatic, no significant comma in images I've looked at to date.
One thing of note is that all the quality deep sky images I have so far seen taken with these scope systems, have been stacks of relatively short integrations. This is by no means conclusive, but since most astrophotographers that are serious want longer integrations and thus better signal to noise ratios, the predominance of short stacked integrations does not bode well for the systems tracking accuracy. I may be reading too much into it and it's early days for the scope yet, but I more or less assume people who can afford one of these with an ST11 camera, wouldn't be taking short integration stacks if they didn't have to.
Meade is unwilling to comment as to whether the thing will be available in the future on GEQ mount, however if it were to become so, it would have to be on one of Meade's own mounts I think, since the scope is utterly dependant on the inegrated mount computer to focus and collimate. The performance in tracking of Meade's GEQ mounts to date suggest that this will still preclude it from being a serious deep sky astrophotography system. It's not impossible that the thing could be released as a OTA and collumn/focus computer system, but Meade's marketing methods don't suggest this will happen.
You will most likely find that you won't get one into the country via a travelling relative for less than you could buy one here, re previous comments by everyone else on duty, shipping cost, tax etc, plus as I understand it, there is still a significant waiting time for delivery in the states and Canada from Meade.
The scope has some serious advantages for it's price: excellent modified RC optics with astigmatism and asterism correction. Electronic focus, collimation. Built in anti-dew. Advanced easy aligning GOTO. Fast focal length for a compound of its type. Wide user community with available advice will come too, and is also important for beginners. Fixed primary mirror; no flop or focus shift.
Disadvantages must also be considered: Mount type and drive tracking accuracy is the biggy. Power requirements. Proffesional features require professional techniques re collimation with focus. Portability (though for an RC this is probably as portable as any, if not more so).
As more people become familiar with these systems, some of these concerns may come to be unfounded, other concerns may arrise. It's a very different and new thing with no directly analogous comparisons to other common consumer equipment.
Hope the above give you some things to think about and aim your own investigations at.
Daemon
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