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Old 12-05-2009, 02:05 PM
dpastern (Dave Pastern)
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 2,874
Troy - my honest thoughts - go with a refractor for planetary imaging, and one of the other OTAs for DSOs.

The Celestron 9.25 has an almost legendary reputation for its optical quality, Meade units less so imho. The Vixen also has a good reputation. The GSO is new on the market - looks promising, but the focuser does look insufficient. I'm not keen on the primary mirrors being glued in place and much prefer the costlier implementation by Deepsky instruments with an electric focuser set up on the secondary mirror.

One other thing - from everything I've read, a 4" refractor will provide better quality planetary images than a 4" reflector etc. The same comment can be applied to any size comparison. Obviously a 10" reflector will show more detail than a 4" refractor due to the larger light gathering abilities of the primary objective/mirror.

I'd go with the Celestron myself - it's a proven optical/quality setup.

I don't expect Meade to last much longer to be honest - I predict that they'll go bust within the next 15-18 months. They are showing all of the warning signs already. Meade optics have a horrid reputation for either being good, or well, bad. And getting Meade to fix the problems is both a timely and costly problem.

Dave
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