Well I own two Meades and have never had any problems with them.
I started out with Astronomy 6 years ago with an 8inch reflector that was mounted on EQ mount that some bloke
told me I would need to view things.
As I had never had any experience then with astro gear I bought it.
It turned out to be a real pain in the b_ _ to use for visual use. The eyepiece kept getting into all sorts of bad positions and been a novice with no goto or time to get along to Astro clubs or patience to learn the sky using more traditional methods in my bad lght polluted yard this scope got put into the back room and there it stayed and gathered dust for 3 years.
I still had the bug, but was mainly just reading mags and watched the odd space show.
3 years ago I bought an 125 ETX and this just rocked my world with its goto and ease of use with first rate optics. What people say about this scope's optics been first class is very true.
I know some very experienced observers now after joining a local club and some of them have looked through this little Mak and have been impressed with the optics. This scope will not allow you to take award winning photo's on its wobbly mount but it gets you into observing buy allowing novices to view many objects in one night and with tracking so this in turn keeps people motivated. After the ETX I was addicted so went out and bought a 12inch LX200R and ordered a colour Mallincam hyperplus video camera from Canada and let me say this combo really rocks. When we have friends over or just me I set the 12R up, plug in the laptop with sky 6, Mallincam in, and sit in our light polluted yard and watch objects down to Mag 19 with no stacking appear on my 17 icnch LCD screen live. Many in full colour with heaps of detail. Anyone who has been over here always falls over in what they are seeing. Punching in an object in the sky6 selecting it, watch as the big 12R swings around perfectly and stops, then the object appear on screen in colour, just awesome for what can be achieved now with gear that is easily obtainable. Everyone that has seen this set up in action comment on its like been in a space ship and my 17inch monitor is the porthole.
I have no skill in computers and once I was shown how to link the 12R upto my laptop by PeterM ( thanks Peter) this LX200R has worked flawless every time and the only problems I have had have been because of my mistakes and user error, like not selecting the right com port or wrong time or any number of settings that you have to have right for it to work nice. Now I am way more experienced with it all I have no problems and can have my 12R setup with laptop,mallincam and LCD monitor in 20 minutes all working great. I have taken my large set up out camping many times and have not had any problems with the 12R. I think alot of people gripe about these things because of user error.
When PeterM discovered his S/Nova, I had my brother over so we set the scope up, plugged in the Mallincam and there was his S/nova at Mag 17.5 on the screen blazing away in its host Galaxy
. I rang Peter up and told him we were viewing it live at that time, exciting night
it was and this would not have been possible to me with out my 12 LX200R and Mallincam.
Bottom line, these Meades got me back into Astronomy big time and without them I would be just reading Mags and wondering.
I did alot of research after getting stung first time around, and everyone around me were saying get a big 16inch Dob, get 80mm refractor and DSLR, do this ,do that but at the end of the day I don't have time or patience to get into dedicated astro photography or the time to get out to dark skies to make use of a large dob, so the LX200R and Mallincam keeps the fun for me. I own a medium Airconditioning company and we do 100's of homes a year and 95% of the problem's we have on any call backs have been because of customer or one of our installer's error's and not the machines . You will always here the 5% of problems 100% of the time but the other 95% of people that are happy stay quiet and carry on in their lives. I know, I see this every day in our buisiness and its not unlike Meades in that its complicated equipment and it is aimed at the general mass market, so you will always here the bad things alot more than the good. Bottom line, I think most of the problems and gripes people have with their Meade scopes here and oversea's stems from user error or I must be one of the very few lucky ones that has a good scope, which is highly unlikley.I hope Meade sticks around as its inovative companies like this that gets people like me out of my lounge room and outside viewing the sky. This in turn make's people like me go and buy things like Naglers, dew heaters, covers, and this in turn helps keep the Astronomy economy going so everyone can access all these goodies at reasonable prices
.
Regards Matt.
