Meade ETX 70 AT

[jasperuk]

What would you be able to see/image with one of these little scopes, anything of any interest ?

Also applies to the 90 version i forgot to add that to the title

[Capricorn]

Have an ETX 70, and somewhere an ETX 105, amongst a few others, it all depends on your expectations, will say no imaging unless you are considering a webcam.

Many belittle the 70mm scopes but a lot then say get binoculars which are usually smaller and the magnification is fixed.

Jupiter is decent, I have had nice sharp views of Jupiter, small but sharp. The image was small as I was trying out BST eyepieces at the time and had a 12mm and a 18mm, could not be fussed to go get a smaller eyepiece. Saturn was reported as good by a user of the ETX70, think they had a 5mm eyepiece - you would need it for Saturn. So you will need to select your eyepiece's - I find a 5mm plossl is not good, a 6mm plossl works reasonably, the 5mm BST is good.

Clusters are OK, many doubles are good.

Small DSO's, faint DSO's and high magnifications are not what the scope is really intended for, lets be honest.

The scope is a short achro and really trying for anything greater then 70x will take some thought. I do have 2 shorter eyepieces - TMB planetarys, but never tried them yet. Too damn lazy. Also not particularily bothered I suspect they will work but possibly not as sharp as I prefer. I would rather a small sharp image then a larger slightly indistinct one.

Alignment is easy, the scope has a wide view and not getting the first alignment star in view means you have entered some really bad data somewhere.

If I recall there is one odd thing, the scope can just go round and round, there doesn't seem to be endstops as on the ETX 105.

Handset is basic, not helped by the fact that I never remember how to navigate round it. So end up relearning it every time.

Drive is a bit noisy as when slewing as it runs at full speed, otherwise it just grumbles away to itself as it tracks.

[Charon]

I have the ETX80 and the views of Saturn and the Moon were quite decent, I tried a few times to view the Orion Nebula but no joy.