133 replies to this topic

[RogerRZ]

I did offer up double the price slice and now will offer up 3 times if it is really good.

No thanks. You could have done the same to the original seller. I didn't do anything but a quick look  to see if it checks out, but given your virtually unattainable high standards, no way I'd take a chance on selling it to you. And again, based on your comments on the CGE, that it seems you have no experience with, it seems you would be hard to please.

Let us not forget that in the whole rig, I have invested the equivalent of a 6" achromatic on an AVX mount, or a bare FC76 OTA. 
 

I don't doubt for a second that I could recoup what I have in it.

[VA3DSO]

No thanks, and what exactly is wrong with this mount? I don't do photography, I want goto, and never ever have the seeing to exceed 400x. Never.

Also consider that as pictured, I have less than $2k in this. 

Looks awesome to me! I'm glad that it worked right off the hop. Congrats!

 

I wouldn't worry too much about what Chas has to say. He lives in a different world from the rest of us.

[Martin]

I did offer up double the price slice and now will offer up 3 times if it is really good.

Chas,

I really wish you would run a want ad for one of these and give it another go. I know you worry about the shipping of such a big scope but you could have the seller remove the lens and cell and ship separately. I believe the focuser can also be removed easily, it does on my 152, and then it's only the empty tube which can be packed with bubble wrap and all of it will arrive at your house no problem. The focuser and dewshield can be sent in a separate box also.  You really need to try one of these again and you will never have to say how you felt cheated on your original 178ED.

 

If not that then I could go down the street and see Doc Brown. He has the Delorean ready to go and we will travel back in time and hand pick one or two off the Meade assembly line. 

 

Martin

[starman876]

Chas,

I really wish you would run a want ad for one of these and give it another go. I know you worry about the shipping of such a big scope but you could have the seller remove the lens and cell and ship separately. I believe the focuser can also be removed easily, it does on my 152, and then it's only the empty tube which can be packed with bubble wrap and all of it will arrive at your house no problem. The focuser and dewshield can be sent in a separate box also.  You really need to try one of these again and you will never have to say how you felt cheated on your original 178ED.

 

If not that then I could go down the street and see Doc Brown. He has the Delorean ready to go and we will travel back in time and hand pick one or two off the Meade assembly line. 

 

Martin

He will never really buy it.   It's more fun complaining.  It's free

[CHASLX200]

Looks awesome to me! I'm glad that it worked right off the hop. Congrats!

 

I wouldn't worry too much about what Chas has to say. He lives in a different world from the rest of us.

Ya 9+ SEEING TONITE. No sea fog. Super warm.  

[CHASLX200]

Chas,

I really wish you would run a want ad for one of these and give it another go. I know you worry about the shipping of such a big scope but you could have the seller remove the lens and cell and ship separately. I believe the focuser can also be removed easily, it does on my 152, and then it's only the empty tube which can be packed with bubble wrap and all of it will arrive at your house no problem. The focuser and dewshield can be sent in a separate box also.  You really need to try one of these again and you will never have to say how you felt cheated on your original 178ED.

 

If not that then I could go down the street and see Doc Brown. He has the Delorean ready to go and we will travel back in time and hand pick one or two off the Meade assembly line. 

 

Martin

Gotta be local so i can test and i can offer up 5k if it is near AP like. I got cheated on mine. 

[CHASLX200]

He will never really buy it.   It's more fun complaining.  It's free

I tried to buy yours and you never got back with me. 

[starman876]

The buyer came and picked it up.  He was willing to drive over a thousand miles one way.   He was very happy with it.   

[RogerRZ]

I braved the bitter cold and wind tonight, and observed Jupiter through decent seeing, through high clouds. At 340x, I ran out of glass, as I didn't pack anything shorter than a 4.7mm. All I can say is, this one is staying. I can't imagine ever being able to justify the next step in optical quality. I was expecting quite a bit of false colour, but there is less in this than my SW Equinox 80 (F/6.25), which I think is pretty darned good, given the aperture of the 178...

 

Cant't wait to go out again, in hopefully warmer weather (for Canada in February).

[deSitter]

I braved the bitter cold and wind tonight, and observed Jupiter through decent seeing, through high clouds. At 340x, I ran out of glass, as I didn't pack anything shorter than a 4.7mm. All I can say is, this one is staying. I can't imagine ever being able to justify the next step in optical quality. I was expecting quite a bit of false colour, but there is less in this than my SW Equinox 80 (F/6.25), which I think is pretty darned good, given the aperture of the 178...

 

Cant't wait to go out again, in hopefully warmer weather (for Canada in February).

These ED scopes have 3-6x better color correction than equivalent achromats. i use the lower figure just to be sure. My ED shows only hints of color on Venus. which is so bright it's hard to disentangle CA in the objective from the eyepiece (every eyepiece will produce color error unless your eye is directly on axis).

 

-drl

[CHASLX200]

No color on my Meade 5" ED but did have a yellow cast on planets.

[Airship]

Wonderful! I am still only getting teaser evenings with my 6" f/15 Jaegers. If you get a chance I highly recommend viewing Venus in daylight. It's way too bright to observe without filters after sunset, but in daylight it is absolutely stunning.

Enjoy!

[deSitter]

Wonderful! I am still only getting teaser evenings with my 6" f/15 Jaegers. If you get a chance I highly recommend viewing Venus in daylight. It's way too bright to observe without filters after sunset, but in daylight it is absolutely stunning.

Enjoy!

It was pretty amazing in my new ETX-125 - that was the first thing I looked at, to check the color correction! I was sort of sure I saw shading but I can never be sure. It was fun to read about observing Venus in James Muirden's "The Amateur Astronomer's Handbook", my 2nd ever astronomy book. He conveyed how fleeting is this shading and how to cope with the brightness, including observing during the day. He also talked about the so-called Ashen Light, and we'll have a good opportunity coming up to look for that, as Venus will be straight up over the western horizon for us this Spring. We'll be able to view the enormous thin crescent  in dark skies around March. That means you can isolate the dark part and look for the light. Big refractors are the tools for this. Color is unimportant.

 

-drl

Edited by deSitter, 09 February 2025 - 07:12 PM.

[CHASLX200]

It was pretty amazing in my new ETX-125 - that was the first thing I looked at, to check the color correction! I was sort of sure I saw shading but I can never be sure. It was fun to read about observing Venus in James Muirden's "The Amateur Astronomer's Handbook", my 2nd ever astronomy book. He conveyed how fleeting is this shading and how to cope with the brightness, including observing during the day. He also talked about the so-called Ashen Light, and we'll have a good opportunity coming up to look for that, as Venus will be straight up over the western horizon for us this Spring. We'll be able to view the enormous thin crescent  in dark skies around March. That means you can isolate the dark part and look for the light. Big refractors are the tools for this. Color is unimportant.

 

-drl

Never seen jack on it.  Best to blow it up before dark at very high pow wows. Fun to see it at a 1000x and makes it much dimmer.

[deSitter]

Never seen jack on it.  Best to blow it up before dark at very high pow wows. Fun to see it at a 1000x and makes it much dimmer.

The Ashen Light is a fleeting illumination coming from beyond the terminator. No one has ever recorded it, because apparently it is so tenuous it requires supreme high contrast to record it, such as only the eye can provide. The eye has an enormous dynamic range.

 

https://en.wikipedia...iki/Ashen_light

 

I have never really attempted to view it, but it always crosses my mind. This is a good opportunity. You need perfect transparency - seeing is irrelevant. Aberrations are irrelevant. Clarity of optics and air are what count. And you use the least amount of glass possible - a Huygens eyepiece is perfect. So you need a big refractor with good baffling and blackening.

 

edit - the bigger the better - you might ask why you can't use a small refractor - because you have to arrange to have the bright part of Venus out of the field of view, so you need high magnifications without getting too dim, which means 5" inches or more. You also need really dark sky. Think of the Horsehead Nebula squared

 

-drl

Edited by deSitter, 09 February 2025 - 07:42 PM.

[CHASLX200]

The Ashen Light is a fleeting illumination coming from beyond the terminator. No one has ever recorded it, because apparently it is so tenuous it requires supreme high contrast to record it, such as only the eye can provide. The eye has an enormous dynamic range.

 

https://en.wikipedia...iki/Ashen_light

 

I have never really attempted to view it, but it always crosses my mind. This is a good opportunity. You need perfect transparency - seeing is irrelevant. Aberrations are irrelevant. Clarity of optics and air are what count. And you use the least amount of glass possible - a Huygens eyepiece is perfect. So you need a big refractor with good baffling and blackening.

 

-drl

Been looking at it every eve. I think i see some shading but always say it is my mind playing tricks.  Way too bright in a 12.5" unless you use very high power. Fun to see a monster size disk. I say a small fract is the best to use.

[eastwd]

Looks awesome to me! I'm glad that it worked right off the hop. Congrats!

 

I wouldn't worry too much about what Chas has to say. He lives in a different world from the rest of us.

What an odd thread. It opened with you, as the OP, trolling Chas in your very first post, and you’ve continued to troll him pretty persistently throughout the thread. I enjoy his posts and have found many of them quite useful and relatable over the years. Like him, I still own an excellent Meade 826 f/6 Newt OTA with a wonderfully sharp mirror, and I’ve owned and sold a Meade 178ED that wouldn’t stay collimated. Like him, I’ve owned several Meade SCTs that were okay, but never great when it came to achieving critical focus on the planets. Unlike him, sadly, I never have subarcsecond seeing where I live. He’s been pretty patient on here, despite several people who seem to find sport in picking at him. None of those people have contributed much of anything that I’ve found personally useful in their posts on this thread. Anyway, good luck to the buyer of the 178ED up in Canada. I hope yours works out better for you than mine did for me. I eventually gave up on affordable refractors and now have a permanently mounted 8 inch f/6 TEC refractor that’s been maintenance free and offers consistently great views.  Or at least as great as my rather ordinary seeing permits. I paid $2K US for my used 178ED, and I ultimately sold it for the same price. (The buyer was sophisticated, he picked it up in person, and I told him in advance all about my experience with the collimation problems.) RogerRZ, I’m rooting for you. If you can achieve results that you like for a tiny fraction of what I paid for my TEC, then I’ll be genuinely happy for you, and only a little envious.

 

Larry

[RichA]

Does it cost more in real terms? I believe the 178ED cost around $7000 in 1997 which is equivalent to around $14000 today, compared to the Askar 185APO which is less than $5k.

 

It's amazing how much cheaper scopes have become over the last three or four decades.

The Meade wasn't made by people earning $10000 a year.  Or less.

[CHASLX200]

What an odd thread. It opened with you, as the OP, trolling Chas in your very first post, and you’ve continued to troll him pretty persistently throughout the thread. I enjoy his posts and have found many of them quite useful and relatable over the years. Like him, I still own an excellent Meade 826 f/6 Newt OTA with a wonderfully sharp mirror, and I’ve owned and sold a Meade 178ED that wouldn’t stay collimated. Like him, I’ve owned several Meade SCTs that were okay, but never great when it came to achieving critical focus on the planets. Unlike him, sadly, I never have subarcsecond seeing where I live. He’s been pretty patient on here, despite several people who seem to find sport in picking at him. None of those people have contributed much of anything that I’ve found personally useful in their posts on this thread. Anyway, good luck to the buyer of the 178ED up in Canada. I hope yours works out better for you than mine did for me. I eventually gave up on affordable refractors and now have a permanently mounted 8 inch f/6 TEC refractor that’s been maintenance free and offers consistently great views.  Or at least as great as my rather ordinary seeing permits. I paid $2K US for my used 178ED, and I ultimately sold it for the same price. (The buyer was sophisticated, he picked it up in person, and I told him in advance all about my experience with the collimation problems.) RogerRZ, I’m rooting for you. If you can achieve results that you like for a tiny fraction of what I paid for my TEC, then I’ll be genuinely happy for you, and only a little envious.

 

Larry

Always a few that cry about my post. I never forgive or forget and they know who they are. I have owned way more scopes than they can dream of have better seeing and have seen way more than they can ever wish for.  If i say a scope is junk it is junk if i say a scope is freaky sharp you can take it to the bank as anyone can ask 100's i have sold scopes 2 that will back me up.

[RogerRZ]

There are some people to whom you would give them a gold plated toilet,and they would complain that it's not white gold. I'm not that guy. I didn't have to in this case, but I temper my expectation based on what I pay for stuff. I don't expect a thousand dollar 7" refractor to be even close to an AP costing twenty times as much. And I don't really care about what happened twenty five years ago. I care about how nice the view was last night. After having a brush with The Maker last spring (septic shock due to invasive group A strep), my glass half full attitude is even stronger than it was.

[VA3DSO]

What an odd thread. It opened with you, as the OP, trolling Chas in your very first post, and you’ve continued to troll him pretty persistently throughout the thread. I enjoy his posts and have found many of them quite useful and relatable over the years. Like him, I still own an excellent Meade 826 f/6 Newt OTA with a wonderfully sharp mirror, and I’ve owned and sold a Meade 178ED that wouldn’t stay collimated. Like him, I’ve owned several Meade SCTs that were okay, but never great when it came to achieving critical focus on the planets. Unlike him, sadly, I never have subarcsecond seeing where I live. He’s been pretty patient on here, despite several people who seem to find sport in picking at him. None of those people have contributed much of anything that I’ve found personally useful in their posts on this thread. Anyway, good luck to the buyer of the 178ED up in Canada. I hope yours works out better for you than mine did for me. I eventually gave up on affordable refractors and now have a permanently mounted 8 inch f/6 TEC refractor that’s been maintenance free and offers consistently great views.  Or at least as great as my rather ordinary seeing permits. I paid $2K US for my used 178ED, and I ultimately sold it for the same price. (The buyer was sophisticated, he picked it up in person, and I told him in advance all about my experience with the collimation problems.) RogerRZ, I’m rooting for you. If you can achieve results that you like for a tiny fraction of what I paid for my TEC, then I’ll be genuinely happy for you, and only a little envious.

 

Larry

I'm sorry you feel that way.

 

My original post wasn't a troll on Chas at all. I know he had a bad experience with the 178ED and I saw it for sale, and immediately thought of him. So I posted about it.

 

Yes, I often poke fun at some of the terms he uses (like "freaky sharp") but I *thought* it was all in good fun. I too enjoy Chas' posts and I like hearing about his experiences with the many scopes he's owned.

 

However, he does tend to be a broken record and chirps the the same things over and over again. That's where he draws some trolling (including from me).

 

Feel free to put me on ignore if you find my posts so offensive and lacking in value.

 

Have a great day!

 

Rick

 

EDIT: Although my initial post wasn't mean to be "trolling" I do admit that some of my subsequent posts were going a bit too far. Thanks Larry for calling me out on it - I've posted an apology to Chas below.

Edited by Rick-T137, 10 February 2025 - 09:01 AM.

[VA3DSO]

Always a few that cry about my post. I never forgive or forget and they know who they are. I have owned way more scopes than they can dream of have better seeing and have seen way more than they can ever wish for.  If i say a scope is junk it is junk if i say a scope is freaky sharp you can take it to the bank as anyone can ask 100's i have sold scopes 2 that will back me up.

Hey Chas,

 

I reviewed my posts on this and a few other threads. I think Larry does have a point in that I tend to get carried away with the chirping.

 

Just know that I do enjoy your posts, and I'm just trying to have some fun with you and I don't mean anything mean by it. I apologize if anything I've posted was out of line.

 

I'll try to be nicer in the future.

 

Thanks!

 

Rick

[starman876]

No color on my Meade 5" ED but did have a yellow cast on planets.

I have seen a yellow cast with different eyepieces, but it never was the scope.  

[YourNotSirius]

Ya 9+ SEEING TONITE. No sea fog. Super warm.  

Why did my old man start laughing like the Mad Hatter when I asked him about a 9+ night in your area? Maybe you can define for me how you are rating the seeing and tell me why he thinks you are telling a fish story, please?

 

I've never been to Florida, let alone Tampa. He has. He and my brother went to the Winter Star Party once and Chiefland a number of times. Pops used to live in the Pan Handle and Eglin AFB was his next door neighbor. He says that his ten acre site had truly fantastic skies because the nearest major city was Pensacola and that was 40 miles to the west of southwest. Otherwise, there was, for all practical purposes, no civilization near him, at all. He says that he could visually see 7.0 - 7.5 magnitude easily on almost any night and the sky was always very steady. He certainly does miss that place. I have looked at the map and I can see what he means when compared to your location.

 

Mind you, I don't write these claims. I just report what he has said. I do know that his eyesight was exceptional until the cataracts took their toll. Now that he has had them removed, it appears that he has that eyesight back. He just hates the cold and refuses to go outside to observe until it gets warmer. He also has mobility issues so wandering around on slippery ground in the dark could be dangerous for him.

 

FWIW

 

Q

[98105dude]

I feel that all of us who've led full lives and have made it to 65 and are still running on at least 5 cylinders should consider ourselves pretty lucky. I know I do. I enjoy my scopes, but mostly I enjoy popping out the door on a clear night and renewing my acquaintance with the stars I have known and loved for 60+ years.