Telescope Reviews: Re: Ultima 2000

I spent a few weeks last year trying to get a friend's Ultima 2000 to work. The manual was poorly written and the only thing that saved me was the manual that I got from Starizona.
Many other seasoned amateur astronomers tried to get the thing to work (but I won't name names). They gave up, frustrated.

I was impressed with the fast quiet slews, but the telescope did have a Y2K bug, not being able to GoTo planets properly.
This is a moot point if you drive it with a computer and software. Celestron issued an updated chip to fix this problem, but a lot of users did not upgrade and second and third owners can no longer get it.

It is an absolute pain in the rear to balance the scope, especially if you add accessories. Just add a Telrad and you have a lot of work to do. Since this is a clutchless telescope, the balance has to be perfect.

When the electronics go bust, it is better to defork the tube and put it on a modern GoTo GEM. No sense in wasting good optics...

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Matthew Ota
10 inch Meade LX250GPS SCT (LX50/LX200GPS clone) f6.3-Orion 80ED, ETX-90 OTA, Coronado Helios 1 H-alpha Solar Telescope
Cassini Huygens Saturn Observation Campaign
New Hampshire Astronomical Society

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