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Celestron EdgeHD vs Meade ACF


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I've been looking at getting a Celestron EdgeHD 9.25 or 11" for long FL imaging. At first I was looking into the RCs but between my own research and the advise from people here have moved to the SCT. I won't get into the details why here since that not my point but I have set my mind to getting a SCT over the RC. But after looking around I came across the Meade ACFs. The Meade ACF 12" is only $100 more, so basically the same price, compared to the Celestron EdgeHD 11". As far as I can tell they are basically the same optical design except one is native F/8 vs F/10.

So why is the 11" Edge pushed more the the Meade 12" ACF? They were both designed to have flat fields and specifically for imaging. So once I add the $500 FF/R to the 11"Edge its not that much faster than the Meade. From what I can tell the Meade wont need a flattener. Or am I wrong on that? But even if I need a FF I wouldn't necessarily need a reducer or if I do get a reducer it would make the Meade very fast. Comparibly that is.

Is it just because the Edge has been around longer that its pushed more or the Meade had some rock finacial issue lately or is there something else that I'm missing? I've tried looking to see if there's any big red flags but haven't found any yet. I'll keep looking but thought I'd see if anyone here knew any.

Thanks,

Nik

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The Meade ACF has been around for longer than the Celestron Edge, by quite a while. Meade intitially tried to call it a modified Ritchey Chrétien, which was blather and was thrown out in a legal battle.

I think they're both OK, but not exceptional in any way. They are a simple route into longer focal length imaging but a refractor of 2/3 the focal length will beat them on the same target in terms of real resolution. However, such a refractor is likely to cost more - and maybe a lot more. They are optically soft compared to refractors but can take you into focal lengths that simply aren't realistic in other budget setups. I'd consider them for this reason. You need to be sure not to use a reducer-flattener with them but a reducer pure and simple.

Meade or Celestron? Good question. Not a clue. 

Olly

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Meade has had quite a bad reputation of late as far as customer satisfaction and relations are concerned, and have had some bad reports in several Forums . Whether or not this has put people off buying their products remains to be seen. I have a Meade LS8 ACF  which did fail on its auto align system, but my importer replaced the scope under warranty and the replacement is working very well, so I cannot fault the Meade dealership in the UK,  My LS8 is F10, a normal focal reducer which includes a field flattener is not suitable as the scope has ACF , I use a standard 0.5 reducer which screws into the diagonal or camera  and gives me F5. For visual along with a wide EP the views almost match those in my F5 frac , I have not attempted AP with the LS8  yet as I am awaiting delivery of a canon 70D , I admit the LS is not really suitable for AP, but I am going to give it a try.

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The Meade ACF has been around for longer than the Celestron Edge, by quite a while. Meade intitially tried to call it a modified Ritchey Chrétien, which was blather and was thrown out in a legal battle.

I think they're both OK, but not exceptional in any way. They are a simple route into longer focal length imaging but a refractor of 2/3 the focal length will beat them on the same target in terms of real resolution. However, such a refractor is likely to cost more - and maybe a lot more. They are optically soft compared to refractors but can take you into focal lengths that simply aren't realistic in other budget setups. I'd consider them for this reason. You need to be sure not to use a reducer-flattener with them but a reducer pure and simple.

Meade or Celestron? Good question. Not a clue. 

Olly

I wish I had the money to get one of those refractors. I like the simplicity of fracs. But for that kind of money I think I'd look at a Planewave or a ODK like Yves. Thanks for the info on the reducer. I'll make sure to look out for that. 

Meade has had quite a bad reputation of late as far as customer satisfaction and relations are concerned, and have had some bad reports in several Forums . Whether or not this has put people off buying their products remains to be seen. I have a Meade LS8 ACF  which did fail on its auto align system, but my importer replaced the scope under warranty and the replacement is working very well, so I cannot fault the Meade dealership in the UK,  My LS8 is F10, a normal focal reducer which includes a field flattener is not suitable as the scope has ACF , I use a standard 0.5 reducer which screws into the diagonal or camera  and gives me F5. For visual along with a wide EP the views almost match those in my F5 frac , I have not attempted AP with the LS8  yet as I am awaiting delivery of a canon 70D , I admit the LS is not really suitable for AP, but I am going to give it a try.

I know Meades rep isnt the best right now. But by the time funds arrive I'm hope they will figure stuff out. F/8 is just really attractive. But I can understand that the EdgeHD has a good history. Hard choice.

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F8, for me, is just about bearable with a cooled CCD. It wouldn't be with a DSLR, but that's just me.

Olly

F/8 compared to F/10. So with a reducer of .7x then I can get down to F/5.6 which is very good for the long focal length of over 1600mm with the reducer. So I can image slow but at 2400mm or "fast" at 1600mm. Both of which I think I would be happy with. I will be focusing on galaxies at these lengths for the most part and will be using my SBIG 2k.

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I think the Meade otas are quite good, quality wise. But their mounts have been quite bad for some time. They might have improved, i don't know.

If a standard SCT 0.67 reducer would work with their new F/8 otas it would indeed be very interesting though..

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I think the Meade otas are quite good, quality wise. But their mounts have been quite bad for some time. They might have improved, i don't know.

If a standard SCT 0.67 reducer would work with their new F/8 otas it would indeed be very interesting though..

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Meade doesn't have a dedicated reducer atm. Celestrons .7x wont work either. On CN forum someone said that APs reducers work. But their CCDDT67 reducer that is common for SCTs is for F/9 or slow scopes. They do have a .75x reducer but nor sure if it works with Meades new F/8 optics. I plan on calling AP later today and see if they can answer some questions. Also I don't plan on getting their mounts. Will either be an EQ8 or AP900/1100 depending on how much I can sneak past the wife lol.

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So I called up AP just now and talked to the tech department regarding their reducers. The tech guy there suggested that I could probably, not 100% sure though, use the CCDT67 reducer with my SBIG 2000k since it has a smaller chip but would not work with larger chip cameras. BUT he did say that theres a good chance I would need too use a combo of spacers to reducer the telecompression to between .7x and .75x to guarantee that I would get perfect stars across the FOV. So if I have to reduce is down to that then I ask why not use their 27TVPH reducer (.75x)? He said that that would be a better choice. It would require a couple extra piece to get everything connected right but would perform better at achieving a flat field across the FOV. It would also help with "future proofing" your self if I were to upgrade to a large chip. He said that it should work with chips up to the SBIG 8300 range. So not sure what would work with the really large chips like in the SBIG 11k but I don't need to worry about that since that kind of camera is out of my budget unless I win the lottery. 

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Go with the EdgeHD, you won't be disappointed. Build quality is good, the scope looks and feels nice, it performs well with a large flat image circle, and at f7 is amply useable. In fact, when you try it at f10 on galaxies etc you will wonder what the fuss is about.

Yes, I am biased because I have a C11 EdgeHD as my spare scope, and have used it to capture an image that netted a rather nice prize, but even so....

No disrespect intended to anybody, but I have never seen a Meade telescope that didn't look like it was about to fall to bits or that hadn't come out of the ark. Celestron on the other hand have invested recently in their imaging offering, and are fast establishing their foot in the door as far as astroimaging is concerned.

You'll also want an off axis guider, and a heated dewshield. I upgraded to a Feathertouch focuser too, which is a luxury but not essential.

If you want to see example images just shout via pm.

Cheers

Tim

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  • 1 year later...

I love my Edge 11" so much.......I'm tempted to upgrade to a 14".......my Paramount will take a 14" OTA easily so I'm told so no extra mount expense but alas some of the 11" accessories wont fit like the focal reducer & the Hyperstar.

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I think Meade have had problems, but since being bought by Junghua Optics, I think a few changes have been made for the better.  I just bought a new Meade 8" SCT with ACF and the views through it are very very impressive.

I have also had Celestron scopes ( last one was a CPC925) and views through my old LX200 10" and the Celestron were very similar. Goto was very accurate with each and I really couldnt tell you which was best.

I assume the Edge HD will be very similar to the Meade ACF so whichever you choose will be very good.

Allan

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