Jump to content

  •  

- - - - -

Keep On Buying


Discuss this article in our forums

I currently own an 8” Meade LX200 GPS, with UHTC coatings. The journey to get where I am now is a funny, expensive, marriage challenging, and an experienced epic tale.

A long, long time ago…….and you know how the rest of the story goes. I was looking up in the summer sky as my older brother pointed out the star Sirius, and rapped out something about magnitude. I thought to myself, how in the blazes does he know this stuff; and so goes the saga of the younger brother having to live up to the reputation and intelligence battering questions all through school, “are you as smart as your brother? “ So purposely, I made sure that I was no way able to live up to that ever right, out of reach brilliance that was like an aura that surrounded my siblings. It was that night though, that 1960’s “mid-summers night” that launched the desire to search the southwest Pennsylvania skies, (now viewed from the country side of rural Orlando, Florida) for satellites, quasars, Polaris, and the big dipper.

I’ve had seven telescopes so far, and by far the absolute best with ease of operation, quick mounting , perfectly clear and bright optics was the Celestron CPC1100. The alignment of stars, and tracking where really second to none. It’s a great telescope for the novice and experienced astronomer. Like everyone else in this hobby, “we” think the perfect aperture and optics are in what we had, or what we hope to buy. Three ETX125’s, two Meade 8”, an old Meade refractor, the CPC1100, and now back to the Meade 8”, I promise dear that this is my last telescope and my buying of new or used telescopes is over……..or maybe not.

The GOTO scopes where perfect for helping me in the beginning, especially with locating new objects and things never seen before with the “Tonights Best” , from Meades’ Autostar controller. The auto alignment feature makes it easy and more encouraging for the beginners who can very easily lose interest because we just don’t know what to look for, nor do we know all the in’s and outs of all the different types of alignment.

I remember first seeing M13, I went running down through the street yelling for anyone who would listen, “hey look what I found” you’d have thought I was the first one to discover the Messier object. I made my wife come out and look, and you know the common reply, where is it, what am I looking at? Finally, on a clear night I located and saw M81, the ever illusive M81, (which is supposed to be seen with the naked eye or a good set of binoculars, yeah right, good luck with that one)some five years later I placed a phone call to tell my brothers I had finally found and seen M81.

As for eyepieces, (and this is my personal opinion), nothing is better than Televue! There is a lot to be said for quality, and it can turn an average telescope into a great one, with awesome views.

Like most people I was slightly disillusioned with the “faint fuzzy’s” at first, but after buying a really good pair of Pentax binoculars, I find myself stargazing every clear night I can, identifying globular clusters, constellations, a brief view of the space station when she streaks by, and oh yes, the bright star Sirius.






  • MikeM6 likes this


0 Comments



Cloudy Nights LLC
Cloudy Nights Sponsor: Astronomics