Telescope Reviews: Review: Meade vs. Celestron 8" SCTs: LDX55 vs ASGT

A French astronomy magazine (aptly named "Astronomie Magazine") has made a little shootout between the rivals' entrey level Gotos and I thought the conclusions might interest you (It's the first head-to-head comparo between these kind of scopes I read, after the all-you-can-drool comparo between the APs and Taks on scopereviews).
Pass the envelopes please:
- optical correction: virtual tie, with a slight advantage to Meade (slightly better spherical correction)
- optical transmission: virtual tie, with a slight advantage to the Celestron XLT over Meade's UHTC
in both cases the reviewer says that only bench test condition could reveal the differences, that actual use of the telescope could not give an advantage to either brand.
- accessories: Meade wins (includes pole finder, easier electric connection, better eyepiece supplied, better finder)
- mount: Celestron wins (mount much sturdier and accurate, making it better for visual and photography, and is quieter)
- gotoing: tie (both scopes are ok but not great on pointing accuracy: the object might fail getting in the 80x fov)

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Matt
CI700 mount with various scopes on top.

Edited by matt (01/26/04 02:58 PM)