8" LX90GPS Meade Telescope?

Question

This is the last question that I'm going to ask on Telescopes as I'm getting fed up.I am not eniterly convinced that the Meade ETX90 is a powerful telescope,it just seems really small and plus the images that they show on the Meade website are not entirely covincing either.The images of some planets are very blurry,and I'd want it to be detailed enough to see bands on the Planets surface.Also the Telescope appears to very small.I can accept the fact that I'm probably not going to have a RCX400,seing as the starting price for that is $5,000!,but sometime in the future when I have a job of my own,I'll buy one.The only better Schmidt Cassegrain I found was the 8"LX90GPS Meade and that costs $1,999,take that $1,999 and convert it into £s and you get £983.42 .This is under £1,000,What I want to know is,is an 8" LX90GPS good enough to see Galaxys and Planets in some detail,without beong blurry?

Answer 1

An 8" LX90 is at the bottom end of being able to see a lot of planetary detail. But you will be able to see bands and the GRS of Jupiter, and the Cassini division and some banding on Saturn, particularly if your seeing capability is experienced. You will be able to see some pretty nice detail in larger galaxys, but will be dimmer that a fast reflector due to focal length. This is actually a very good planetary and a pretty decent all-around scope for an amatuer.

But if you really want bang for buck, you could get a 12 or 14-inch Dob/Newtonian in that price range. Much bulkier scope, but blows the doors off an 8" SCT, particularly for faint-fuzzies like galaxys and nebulae.

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Answer 2

8" is considered a moderate sized aperture, and it's by far the most common. They are considered good all around telescopes because they have enough aperture to see more than a handful of things and are small enough to easily transport. They're very commonly used for astrophotography.

Viewing planets and viewing galaxies are sort of like apples and oranges. In both cases, larger telescopes generally perform better than smaller ones, but for planets you have to use high magnification. This means that the quality of your image greatly depends on not only the telescope and eyepiece but on the atmosphere. Planets will appear atleast somewhat blurry the vast majority of the time due to the atmosphere in any Earth based telescope without adaptive optics.

People who are serious deep space (aka galaxy) viewers typically use large telescopes starting at 10" of aperture. Understand though, that you can see many galaxies in an 8" telescope, and that even in most larger telescopes, most galaxies only reveal the slightest hints of detail and only under very dark skies.

You may occasionally catch some detail in some galaxies with an 8" telescope though. The important thing to keep in mind is, not even the guy with the 16" dobsonian can see much in the way of detail in say the Andromeda galaxy. This is where you will have the advantage. To bring out detail in a galaxy you must photograph it. The camera will pick up the detail just fine. The 16" dobsonian is not astrophotography ready, the 8" LX90 is.

There have been considerable advances in astrophotography in the past 15 years, which has made it possible for people with smaller telescopes to get images better than those taken by Earth based observatory telescopes in years past.

So you will seldom see through any telescope what you see in a photo. The best way to know what people see through their telescope is to go to a star party and look through different telescopes, or do a websearch for sketches that people have made at the eyepiece.

Answer 3

The most crucial variable in telescopes is their aperture, and an 8" telescope is going to run rings around a 3.5" telescope, all else being equal. The _type_ of telescope is not quite as important; an 8" Dobsonian will give you as good or better images of both planets and deep sky objects as an 8" SCT, at a fraction of the cost.

Probably you should be looking elsewhere than Meade; it's the least reliable of the "big three" (Celestron, Meade, and Orion). Meade has the biggest advertising budget and does the prettiest catalogs, but the others sell better telescopes and have better customer service (especially Orion). Your calculation of the price of the Meade scope is way off; because of VAT etc., expect to pay more like £2000.

In the above, I'm referring to the US Orion, as opposed to the UK Orion, which are totally different companies. The UK Orion doesn't export to Canada (where I'm located) so I don't have any first hand information on them, except that I've heard that their optics are very good.

Answer 4

What makes you think the blurriness is being caused by the tscope's optics??? It could be a number of things that's not even the tscope's fault: your location may be plague with poor site management like atmospheric problems like smog, humidity, or overcast. Could be light pollution. Maybe you don't have a good steady vibration-less base (made of a poured concrete foundation). Before you go all nuts over a high priced tscope think about this first. The best place to view is on top of a high mountain (i.e. Keck?) in the cold winter. And a very good vibration free concrete base too.

I've seen the red spot of Jupiter and the rings and moons of Saturn and I haven't paid anywhere NEAR the $$$ your planning on paying. And I live at 32' asl in a metropolitan area of USA with only a cheap tscope & tripod - no concrete base.
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IMHO the higher the price the more bells & whistles (i.e. external features) the tscope has. I really can not see how the optics will be less blurry with a more expensive tscope. You'll just be buying "features" not less blurriness IMO... I reiterate to control blurriness you must control SITE MANAGEMENT not your optics.

Answer 5

Don't set you sights too high. No scope will show you images like photographs in books. You can get those by using a good scope for astrophotography, but that takes time and experience.

The ETX-90 will give good images of Jupiter and Saturn if you crank the power up high enough, which requires steady air conditions. They can also be used with digital and CCD cameras for imaging.

Part of your question gives me the impression that you're like a young driver deciding you need a ferrari, or wanting to be a sporting shooter and thinking a howitzer must be best. If you're inexperienced, I'd go with the suggestion of the Dobsonian scopes. You need to find the objects yourself (except Orion scopes may have guiding), but you'll see a lot more through 10 or 12 inches of mirror.

Answer 6

Generally, the more you spend, the better scope you have... Galaxies are hard to see, with a couple of exceptions, and planets are very easy to see, but there will always be some blur & shimmering due to atmospheric effects.

My advice is: Go to a local astronomy club - colleges are ideal for this. Get a feel for their equipment, look through a few. If you *really* want a telescope, spend what you can afford. I had a 200x scope as my first, which was good, and was happier when I got a 500x (both were Tasco). I found the smaller scope was much easier to use, and was able to have more 'seeing' time than the larger, but I definitely saw more detail with the larger scope.

Answer 7

Yes, eight inches is getting into the size where you can see things in some detail, and the LX90 is a good telescope. I agree with Campbel though that you're probably in for some sticker shock - I keep hearing that the UK prices tend to be the same as the US prices, just substitute £ for $.

You will get more telescope for your money if you're willing to go totally manual and get a dobsonian. A 12" dob costs about half what an 8" SCT goes for.

And there are much better places than here to go for advice and opinions on telescopes. Try the Yahoo telescopes group - http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/telescopes/ , or the forums at http://www.cloudynights.com/ .

Answer 8

Yes, an 8 inch telescope is enough to see some detail. The source is a bunch of photographs I have taken with a 6 inch telescope; 2 inches smaller than your proposed 8 inch.

But I question that you can get it in the UK for £983.42. I am a member of several astronomy groups in Yahoo, and the other members who are in the UK always complain how Meade telescopes cost twice as much in the UK as in the US. Opinion varies as to the cause. It might be import duties, VAT, shipping costs, or just price gouging, but the price is much higher in the UK.

Answer 9

This is too long.Shorten it out.

Ah,well good luck with getting the money for the telescope.Here is a star.

Answer 10

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