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I have had my Meade LX200R 10" (ACF optics) setup next to a 11" Celestron and the meade optics were far better on my example. We swapped between 10, 13 and 17mm ethos ep's and the Meade delivered round stars to the edge with better contrast bringing out fainter detail. Not so with the Celestron SCT which showed visable coma from about 2/3rds the way out. You need to be aware that these scopes can vary widely in optical quality from one example to another due to a close enough is good enough culture that seems to prevail at both factories. I always keep mine very well collimated and the optics clean. I have found the mirror lock to be unnecessary for most applications only needing to be used for AP and image shift is a non event in general. I have replaced the original focusing setup with a feather touch micro focuser and this helps in removing mirror flop which can be dialed out using the original setup but the focusing action becomes very heavy. I also have a Moonlite crayford attached which I use for AP only. As stated the meade scopes are much heavier then the Celestron and although its easy to mount Alt/Az, it is not possible for a single person to mount the 10" on a wedge let alone a 12" or bigger. The problem with these scopes (forks) is that they are a pain to move and setup due to weight and tend not to get used as much as they should because of it. If you are buying from scratch consider either the Meade 10" OTA on a EQ6 or a 11" HD Celestron tube on one of their EQ mounts as you will be able to setup with much less pain. If you go Celestron be prepared to pay big bucks when buying new from the Oz supplier.
Mark
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