Meade ETX-125PE

[Valmir]

What i meant by the poll is what company are you more likely to buy from. Too my statement now, yes it was confusing once i look back on it but what i meant by Max Mount is the RCX400 20inch which can only be mounted on this mount, yes Meade and Celestron are similar in size i noticed that Celestron doesn't seem to make much 16-20inch scopes i am not downing Celestron but Meade makes generally observatory level telescopes for example at my local observatory they have about three giant Meade scopes and what i meant by the metropolitan statement is your not going to go traveling with big the 12inch Meade scopes.

[Valmir]

yes the poll is confusing i just don't know how to rename them.

[Stephen65]

To be honest I am not wild about buying from either company. I have read too many Meade quality control horror stories to consider buying from that company and Celestron scopes are subjected to a horrendous markup in Australia.

[Valmir]

i think i should of put in other

[g__day (Matthew)]

For SCTs - both the Meade R series and the Celestrons seem to have alot going for them and folk here have used them well.

Some perform better than others - for budget and initial use I chose a Carbon Fibre 9.25 Celestron. I initially got this on a CG5, then added a Meade Motorfocus, then a JMI PC/USB focus controller, then added a Megrez 80mm refractor for guiding, moved to a Vixen Atlux mount on a pier and finally moved to Losmandy saddles and rings. Not cheap but I am very happy wih the result.

During my research I heard alot of feedback that the 9.25" Celestrons and the 14" where the pick of the Celestron range - and had really good flat fields ideal for imaging. I liked the idea of a carbon fibre tube - to minimise temperature related focus management. I have re-focused due to temperature just twice in a year! Some people with high end apo's I hear re-focus after each colour channel!

If you are starting without a clear goal, choose between a 5" or 6" fork mounted SCT, or a 80mm - 100mm ed refractor or a large dob, that link to the second hand 8" SCT seemed like a real good deal to me!

[Valmir]

Meade and Celestron are generally even at the moment.