So admit it. You have really always wanted a Questar. Ever since that day on Attu when the whole group cued up behind one to see the Siberian Rubythroat, and the better than bird-in-the-hand view left you speechless with envy; ever since the overcast day at Cape May when a fellow birder picked up a Long-tailed Jaegar way out beyond the limits of conjecture where your scope showed only a slight moving condensation, a hazy nothing, haunting the horizon. Still, most of us can live with a lot of Questar envy, once we find out what one actually costs.
So what you want to know now is: can this new Meade ETX, which looks a lot like a Questar and sells for a paltry $600, possibly provide even a fraction of the $2500 Questar Birder experience? After all, Meade's ads, without naming names, claim to equal or better the performance of any other similar scope. Is there, finally, a Questar for the rest of us?
Physically, the ETX is certainly a lot like the Birder. They share the same optical design, a design that uses mirrors to create the image and fold a high-power-producing long focal length into a compact package. They both have a 90mm mirror. From the front, where the optics are the primary feature to catch your eye, they look all but identical. The tubes are even the same metallic blue. They are similar in size, weight, and bulk.
Going around behind the scopes the similarity continues. The back of the Questar, with its bright silver-finished knurled knobs and levers, has always looked like the inside of a Swiss watch. The ETX has fewer knobs and levers, brushed aluminum against the black plastic body, but manages to maintain the no-nonsense, functional look. The focus knobs, like jumbo screw heads, look just about identical. As you might expect though, the Meade can not equal the silky smooth feel of the Questar.
Both scopes allow you to mount the eyepiece at the top for a right-angle, looking-down-into-the-thing, reversed-right-for-left view. The Meade comes with a 45° right-reading prism viewer that screw mounts in the center of the back. The Birder also has a covered view port there, but it is designed primarily for photography (of course, you can mount a camera on the Meade in place of the 45° prism). If you want the best performance from the ETX you will forgo the 45° prism anyway, and mount the eyepiece where it is on the Questar. The prism noticeably degrades the image at higher powers.
The Meade takes standard astronomical, slip in, 1.25 inch eyepieces. It comes with a 26mm Super Plossl for a 48 power view, but there are literally thousands of eyepiece choices, from Meade and from every maker of astronomical equipment. The Questar comes with a screw mount 32mm Brandon eyepiece for about 40 power. They have a range of screw in Brandons available, and you can use standard 1.25 inch eyepieces (though Questar would argue that the Brandons are specially formulated to maximize the performance of the scope).
From there the scopes diverge rather sharply. The Birder has always been the epitome of field friendliness. It has a integrated 3-12x finder scope (depending on the eyepiece in use) built in under the barrel of the main scope. While looking through the main eyepiece, a simple flick of a lever gives you either the 3x wide field view or the 40x view. Flick one more lever and a 1.5x Barlow lens (or "amplifier" as Questar calls it) slips into the view path, increasing the power to 60x (or 1.5 times whatever power your eyepiece is providing). That is wide field, mid-power, and high-power, without ever taking your eye from the eyepiece, without even much refocusing. You really have to experience just how functional the design is in actual use. It makes you wonder why such a simple idea has not been adapted to other, more conventional, scopes...especially the flip in barrow, which practically eliminates the need for much more complex zoom eyepieces.
The Meade uses a standard astronomical finder scope, 6 power, mounted on the top left of the scope body. Not only do you have to switch your eye back and forth between the two eyepieces, but the finder is finicky to keep aligned (it requires fiddling with six separate screws to align the finder view with the main view), can be difficult to get your eye behind, and provides a pretty dim view. I never used the finder on the Meade after the first few attempts. It is easier to just sight down the barrel and sweep for the bird.
The Questar Birder also comes with a simple slide out sun shade, which the ETX lacks, for times when the sun is in front of you.
Before we go much further it is only fair to point out that there has been an alternative to the Questar for almost as long as there has been a Questar: the Celestron C90. It shares the same optical design as both the Birder and the ETX, but Celestron gave the C90 its own unique identity early on by making it available in rugged field armor, and providing helical focus (the whole barrel screws in and out like a pre-autofocus telephoto camera lens) that some birders find faster and more natural in the field (and some absolutely hate). It, like the ETX, relies on a bolt on astronomical finder scope with is largely useless in the field, takes a wide variety of 1.25 inch astronomical eyepieces, and comes with a 45° right reading prism viewer. To eliminate the image degrading 45° viewer you have to invest in right-angle hybrid star diagonal (available from Celestron as an accessory), but if you are looking for a Questar for the rest of us, the C90 should also be considered.
It is, of course, the view through a Questar, and not its physical features, that generally provokes Questar envy in the first place. Neither the ETX or the C90 can equal the apparent brightness or contrast of the Questar. We are talking subtle but visible differences here. In a side by comparison in a variety of different field conditions, the Birder always looked just a little brighter and provided just a bit more snap than either of the other scopes. I'd have to say, though, that both the ETX and the C90 provided exceptionally satisfying views...the kind of views that have made the Questar so popular. I was especially impressed with the C90. With a right angle star diagonal to level the playing field, and the special coatings on the model I was testing, it was just as snappy as the ETX in most situations. I have a feeling that most birders who have compared the Questar and the C90 in the past have done so with the Questar in right angle viewing mode and the C90 in 45° prism mode. Not a fair test.
When it comes to the amount of detail delivered to the eye (the resolution) of the three scopes, I could not, in my testing, see any really significant difference. All three easily outperformed conventional scopes at 60 power (showed finer detail at equal distances). Even at considerably higher powers, there was little difference in the amount of detail visible through the three. Of course, the quality of the eyepiece in use at any given power, and the power itself, has a good deal of effect on the amount of detail delivered to the eye. Since there is such a wide variety of eyepieces available for these scopes, comparing resolution becomes very complex. All I can say for sure, is that any one of these scopes at medium to high power will deliver all the detail you are likely to need under almost any field condition.
Ease of view is another matter all together. The Brandon eyepieces on the Questar, especially coupled with the built in Barlow lens, give some of the easiest views of any scope on the market. The field is open, fairly wide, and very easy on the eye. Even eyeglass wearers will find the scope easy to use at medium to high powers.
Meade, on the other hand, has not done themselves any favors in the 26mm Super Plossl supplied as a standard eyepiece. The optical quality is good, but the physical construction makes it difficult to see through, especially for eyeglass wearers. Also, at almost 50 power, the narrower field makes it less suitable for general field work. True, it is easy enough to substitute another eyepiece, but most of us would rather spend that money on even higher power.
The C90 also comes standard with a 26mm Plossl eyepiecehowever on the shorter focal length scope (1000mm as opposed to 1250mm) it yields a more useful 38 power. The physical structure of the Celestron eyepiece also makes it much more friendly, and provides a much easier view, whether you wear eyeglasses or not. It is an exceptionally fine eyepiece and makes the C90, with the optional star diagonal, a really attractive package. (If I were buying the ETX, I would look for an eyepiece like this one, only in the 32mm range, to go with it.)
I also had a chance to test the Celestron LV 8-24mm zoom on the C90. This zoom, which reminds me of the exceptional Swarovski zoom (and which is actually available in other guises for several conventional spotting scopes) is one of the finest eyepieces currently on the market. It provides good fields and eyerelief (critical for eyeglass wearers) at all powers (42-125x on the C90) and is very sharp and bright through the whole range. This combination, the LV zoom and the C90, comes close, very close, to matching the ease of use of the Birder with its built-in Barlow, and may actually exceed it if you need intermediate or higher powers often in the fieldif, that is, you can accustom yourself to helical focusing. (Of course you could mount this eyepiece on either of the other scopes, especially the Meade, and reap the similar benefits, though the lowest power available would be a somewhat high 52x.)
So to answer our original question, I would have to say that both Meade and Celestron have done excellent jobs of providing a Questar like experience at cost most of us can afford. There is no doubt in my mind that the Questar Birder is still the best mirror scope on the market...combining unmatched optical performance, unmatched mechanical quality, and unmatched ease of use. If price is not a concern for you, the Questar Birder is the scope in this group to own. Still, both the ETX and the C90 provide a reasonable, an amazingly close, approximation of the optical experience provided by the Questar. They aren't as much fun to use, and they probably won't last as long, but then, you could buy four of either, or two of each, (or one of these and a high quality conventional scope) for what you pay for a Questar. That's got to amount to a pretty good deal.
This might be a good place to ask yourself, though, if a Questar-like experience is really what you want at all. In my considered opinion, unless you consistently use powers in the 50-100x range, and have no need of powers below 40x (and the wider field lower powers provide), most birders are better served, and generally at lower cost, by a conventional spotting scope with an exceptional zoom eyepiece or a range of high quality fixed-power eyepieces. The limited field of view of these mirror scopes, along with the extra measure of care they require in the field, make them, to my mind, special purpose scopes. Even the relatively inexpensive ETX and C90 might not be a good investment if either is going to have to be your only birding scope. You have got to need high power, all but limitless power, to justify carrying any of the mirror scopes into the field.
That said, I will finish up with a story. While out testing these scopes, my daughter and I set them up on a rocky beach in Kennebunk, Maine for some photos and some sea-duck scoping. I had been there messing around with photos and studying off-shore ducks for most of an hour when my daughter pointed out seven Piping Plovers huddled in the stones just at the water-line about eight feet in front of us. As usually happens when I am out with a whole bunch of scopes, passerbys got interested and there was a steady flow of people tromping down to look through the various scopes and exclaim over the views. The plovers were not in the least concerned with us, and remained peacefully there, preening in the early morning chill, while I finished the testing. Just for fun, before I packed everything up, I swiveled the tripod head down under the Questar and focused on one of the plovers. Oh my! At eight feet and 40x, through a scope like the Questar, you can see more detail than you could with a magnifying glass and the bird in hand. I trained the other scopes, first the Meade, then the C90, and finally a Celestron C5 that I had with me (see sidebar) on other birds in the little flock. Then I went from scope to scope simply reveling in the living beauty of those birds; the delicate shading; the infinite detail of the breast feathers; the gleam and depth of the eye; the seeking, stroking intelligence of the beak as they preened; the throbbing aliveness and otherness, right there, closer and brighter than I had ever hoped to see. Something like that can make a convert of most anyone...
If you want all the optical performance, all the brightness and contrast, all the sharpness, of the Questar Birder, but can't afford the priceand if you are willing to live with a bigger, bulkier package and a bit more hassle in the field, you should take a look at the Celestron C5. The C5, like the Questar and the ETX, is an astronomical scope that is available in spotting scope configuration (without the setting circles and fork mount recommend for star gazing). It's 5 inch mirror delivers maximum brightness and resolution right up to the highest useful powers (in the 200x range). You need to invest in the right angle star diagonal to replace the 45° viewer that comes with it, and the finder scope is your typical all-but-useless bolt on affair, but still, for extreme distances or true Questar like performance on a budget, this might be the scope to own. If you have any interest in astronomy, you can by the astronomical package, which comes with the star diagonal, and which easily converts to spotting scope use, and have one of few true dual-use scopes currently on the market...for something less than half of what you would pay for a Questar. Birds by day and galaxies and nebula by night. Such a deal!