Meade ETX70 AT

I was bitterly disappointed with my Meade from the start. It was nowhere near as good as a 20 year old Tasco which it replaced. It will not resolve Jupiter, never mind Jupiter's moons.
I don't know if this is down to a manufacturing fault, or perhaps damage in transit. The U.K. Meade agent tells me nothing can be done to rectify it.
However, my experience with this telescope has put me off Meade for life.
It is only good for terrestial use.

I bought this telescope as a beginner scope, and my enthusiasm was unfortunately clouded by the very clumsy and (for beginnes) difficult allignment. Although it did not destroy my wish to keep exploring the universe, I must admit that it was a burden for me to invite people over to observe, only to spend looooong time alligning the puppy.

I have now invested in a GPS scope also from Meade - LX200R 8". I have stayed with Meade, since the quality of the telescope (even the ETX70) was very good, and the new GPS setup is really really really cool.

Enjoy!!

Just a quick review:
Got my refurb'd etx 70 from Scopetronix yesterday. Great folks, by the way. Set it up last night (coincidentally the first clear night in Portland, Or in some time). I'm new to astronomy so my terminology may not be good, but here goes. Did some 24 mm, and 9mm views of the moon-beautiful despite lousy seeing conditions. Turned scope on Saturn -wow! With a 2x Barlow #124 and a 5mm (yeah I know, that's really pushing it, but I wanted to try) I got an excellent look at Saturn - complete with N/S equatorial bands! I couldn't believe it. The bands moved in and out of clarity but I'm pretty sure that was sky conditions. I just stood there and giggled like a kid. I love this little scope! The image certainly didn't fill the eyepiece but that was fine. I did not notice a lot of color distortion, though Saturn had a pale yellowish tinge to it. I'm real curous now as to what the right filters will do for clarity.

My telescope is a Meade ETX-70, and I've had it since April 2003. When I was buying this, my first telescope, I did a lot of research on the internet into what to get (see my
equipment guide) and Meade came forward as being very good quality.
Although it doesn't have such a wide aperture, it makes up for it in optical quality.

It's also got motor controlled mounts, so that you can move it very slowly and precisely, and with the 'Autostar', the hand-held guider, you can align the telescope so that it can
point you at whatever you want to see, and track it, compensating for the Earth's rotation. It isn't perfect but is quite good, the object will usually be in view (even if not exactly in the centre) and will stay there for quite a long period of time even on high magnifications. At the back it's got a port which you can fix your SLR camera onto to take photos with the
prime focus method (although the tracking isn't really good enough to take great prime focus pictures, but I have taken some good afocal images with it.)

Saturn's rings are clearly visible, cloud bands can be seen on Jupiter along with the planet's four largest moons, and on a very good day (when it passed by very close recently)
I was able to see the polar ice caps on Mars. Detail can be seen in the Orion Nebula, and when used on low magnification you can see quite a wide field, with very good
resolution. In all, I think it's an excellent first telescope, and it may even be all you ever need.