127mm APO refractor - info help !

[Telescope40]

Hi all. Looking for some opinions on my aperture fever for a bigger refractor. Hoping at some point to upgrade from my Celestron ED100R and going for a frac as per the title. Will have to be second hand as budgets have limits. Guess one will pop up sooner or later on SGL or ABS. My queries are. I like the look and the reviews of the Meade 127 triplet. I have however seen a couple of ads on the net for what seems to be the same scope but wit a different brand name eg

Astro Tech and Deep Sky.

Are these the same scopes or inferior versions of the Meade.

Also, can all you wise folks out there give me any other options to the 127. I'm not an imager purely visual for now, apart from the odd "play" with a webcam.

Finally. Would I be correct in thinking that a 2nd hand 127 OTA, in good nick, could be had for under £1000 ???

Thx in advance as always John

[kris h]

There was one for sale on here a few months ago he was asking for

over £900 for the scope a new from opticstar is £1695

quite a big saving would love to have one .

[ollypenrice]

You should get a 127 for less than a grand and it is very good. So is the SW ED120. I doubt you'd find much to choose between them. I had a 127 for 2 years and only upgraded because a second hand TEC140 came along.

Can't help with rival versions but my feeling is, beware.

Olly

[John]

A 5" triplet apochromat is a difficult scope to make well. Quality control through the manufacturing process is costly. I believe the Meade 127mm triplets sold in the UK are quality checked by a company within the EU en-route from China. Personally, I'd be wary about buying a scope that had not been subjected to such a quality check, unless I was able to fully test it myself before committing to the purchase.

I'm sure these scopes can be excellent but the point is that you want the one you buy to be excellent

[Jacopo]

All these 127ed meade by Jinghua should come with an optical quality test performed in China. Imho, this shows they're confident that the avarage production is good.

The main concern should be a bad collimation due to an extremely rude shipping, but in this case the reseller really makes the difference.

Even on used market I wouldnt bother about the brand and pay a premium for it. First try to buy something you can collect personally and/or return if not collimated.