The reason you see more Celestron equipment isn't because of 'units sold' despite what some pro-celestron/anti-meade members want to present.
You'll find that Meade's focus in telescopes has been on higher end optics and fork mount equipment like the LX200 & LX600 models without serious competition from Celestron which chose to focus on GEM mounted SCTs. The LX850 Was a response for a toe-hold in the up-to 14" OTA with the innovative dual-guiding Starlock which is also part of the LX600 line. Sunny is the regularly recognized name of Chinese ownership while Meade still maintains manufacturing facilities just across the border from California with both American citizen employees as well as non-American employees.
Both companies have a plethora of sales... people here think Celestron some how has more sales without proof whether within the US or around the world. With both companies manufacturing base for their wide selection of offerings being manufactured in China it is rather disingenious to present false impressions of quality when both have their fair share of production issues, fauxpaus, and failures.
The large number of Celestron offerings in the classifieds sections could be reflective of many things, quality, upgrading paths, satisfaction with performance, legacy support, and more. We could draw a corralary between the classifieds and the manufacture specific forum for Celestron which is also quite active in posts seeking support. Of late this seems to be around the electronic focuser and issues with the RASA 8 & 11" units and software integration for pointing accuracy.
This hobby is not one that guarantees any constantcy of equipment, equipment performance, equipment obsolescence. Many long time hobbyists can attest to this statment. Whether one company has higher or lower sales, what is clear we all have spent our monies to enjoy this hobby. Attempting to shade evaluation of equipment without operating that equipment for any appreciative time is disingenious as well. I suggest anyone who is concerned with one particular model or another get some first-hand knowledge of current models before believing negative or defamatory claims.
Clear Skies.
"High End" In price maybe, but I have seen probably 30 interferometer tests of Meade SCTs and the quality is been very random. Some are excellent, some are disasters, and most are somewhere in between.
This likely has no bearing on used sales because most take the seller at their word and don't require any kind of any test reports because well, that is hard to get.
Money where mouth is:
Here are four Meade 10" ACF scopes. Two of these has what most consider to be the pass for diffraction limited (Strehl of .8) and two are below (and even the highest quality one is not what I would call good enough to make the instrument "High End" in total.
. 89. Not high end optical quality but decent.http://fidgor.ru/Obs...st/test_48.html
.81. Close to the bottom limit for diffraction limited optics http://fidgor.ru/Obs...st/test_50.html
.754. Close, but no banana: http://fidgor.ru/Obs...st/test_50.html
.792. Closer but no banana: http://fidgor.ru/Obs...st/test_50.html
Meade with .874 Strehl. Good, but not what I would call "High End" optical quality and if the optics are not high end, then you can make it look pretty, but to be high end, to me, the optics have to be of very high optical quality.
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_470.html
A clearly defective Meade 12". This is one of the worst telescope optics I have ever seen in a mass produced SCT with a Strehl of .315
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_459.html
Another lemon, this time a 6" Meade:
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_450.html
Another Meade with below the bar optics (.749)
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_431.html
Under the bar 8"
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_352.html
An excellent one!!!!
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_427.html
A nice one:
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_417.html
Meade 125ETX. Scope with reputation for excellent optics. One truly excellent, one that is very decent:
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_412.html
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_403.html
Decent...
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...2/test_352.html
http://fidgor.ru/Obs...t/test_220.html
And you can badmouth the Russians if you want, but I can pull up similar tests from other websites and they all say the same thing, which is that Meade and Celestron SCT can vary greatly in optical quality. To me "High End" cannot be associated with high quality because in telescopes, if the optics are not high quality, then it is (in my own opinion) difficult to say that the instrument is a high quality instrument. Maybe it has high build quality, but that is not what most people think of when you say a telescope is "High Quality."
There is the interferometer, and there is everything else. You can call these tests bad and that is fine with me, but again, I can produce other tests from other sites that say pretty much the same thing.
This has nothing to do with used equipment sales, but it has everything to do with the difference between truly premium and mass produced optics.