Celestron prodigy 6 or Meade ETX-LS 6

[pmgsky2]

Hello

Just about to get started and would like something that the whole family could use.

Interested in the two units above.

Anyone have any advice on these or should I be looking for something completely different

Many thanks

Peter

[sunshine185]

This is just my personal opinion but I think the prodigy series of telescopes are way overpriced. Me and my 11 year old daughter have great fun just using a manual telescope without any electrics involved. For the price you pay for a prodigy telescope you could buy something far, far more powerful.

[sunshine185]

Just seen the price of the Meade, that's a lot of money for a 6" aperture telescope. If you are only using the telescope for visual observing I suggest you look elsewhere and save some money.

[E621Keith]

Are you sure you want the auto alignment feature. The 3 stars alignment method on the Celestron Nexstar 6SE is very easy to use and that scope is much cheaper than the LS and Skyprodigy. Also, the SE have much better mount than the Skyprodigy.

If you can't point the scope at any three bright object in the sky, then I'd pick the LS. It was designed to handle a 6" and 8" OTA like the Celestron Nexstar 6/8SE. The Skyprodigy was designed for scopes much smaller and lighter than the C6 and will perform very poorly with the C6 OTA. Personally I found the stability of a 127 mak on a SLT mount unsatisfactory, so a heavier C6 on what is essentially the same mount will be much worse.

[NGC 1502]

Hi David. It's so tough these days giving advise, we are spoiled for choice.

I suppose I'm old fashioned and would rather have something low-tech with a larger aperture. But I do know that many newcomers to the hobby struggle to find objects manually.

So looking at the Meade LS6, I'd get the LT6 instead and save myself £300 - same optics with go-to, just a bit less "bells & whistles".

Or maybe the Celestron 8SE, It's between the two Meades in price, but has a larger 8" aperture and go-to.

I'd not rush this, see what others say and read some reviews if you can, or better yet, perhaps find an astronomy club where hopefully you can see some scopes and speak to the owners.

Hope you find something that suits you, Ed.

[John]

This is just my personal opinion but I think the prodigy series of telescopes are way overpriced. Me and my 11 year old daughter have great fun just using a manual telescope without any electrics involved. For the price you pay for a prodigy telescope you could buy something far, far more powerful.

Thats my take on these scopes too. Too much money for a 6" aperture scope.

[Marki]

I'd give a vote for the Celestron 8SE over either of those choices. I bought this as my first scope - good optics, and very useful aperture and pretty easy to set up. I found that having GOTO was useful to find stuff and keep me interested to begin with (tend to do things manually now I'm a bit more experienced), and for tracking things once I;d found them. You can do the three star (or actually bright objects, like planets too) alignment, but it also has simpler one or even two star alignments as well.

[Rich MedRev]

The best setup for the family is a scope that you'll actually use, a Goto setup is great at first however it is no substitute for learning the sky. Unless you are stuck permanently in the city and struggle to see beyond mag 3 stars, where a Goto might well help, the best starter set up would be a decent Dobsonian from 130mm to 200mm, easy to set up, great value and do not require power, they dont suffer with dew in the way the scopes you've indicated do and they will be ready for observations in a much shorter time as SCT's take over an hour to adjust and allow tube currents to settle, often by which time without a dew zapper (more power needed) the objective will have fogged over in UK climes.

the 200mm Skyliner Dob is still under £300 and if you could add digital setting circles to make it a push to scope or else check out the Orion intelliscopes from SCS Astro which already include factory fitted digital encoders which work as a push system and for an 8" (200mm) scope is about £550, still way less than the Prodigy 6 or Meade LS or LT6.

This will leave plenty of cash for accessories such as decent eyepieces and filters.

if you still want a full Goto then a second hand system such as the Celestron Nextstars complete with a powertank and dew zapper would be my choice and you should be paying £600 - £700 in total depending upon the scope size.

HTH

[glowjet]

I should take your time in evaluating what there is available, before spending your hard earned money. Probably your best bet is to source out your nearest Astro club and go along to their meetings and to one of the club observing nights, where you can have a look through some of the telescopes and gather information first hand. I would also support what has been said about the prodigy, a very expensive telescope on a not so expensive tripod. As a prelude to a telescope, have you ever considered a reasonable pair of binoculars and tripod ( as there may by children involved ) together with downloading such as Stellarium and investing in a copy of TL@O, to get the family interested in the night sky

John.

[CSM]

Ok - you are obviously prepared to pay quite a bit, but go to a Star Party, look through the scopes. There are plenty of Star Parties around this time of year and Stargazing live is coming up soon.

[rowan46]

The c6 tube is very good on the prodigy. If I had to choose between the 2 I would choose the celestron because it's cheaper. However If I had the money for the meade I would choose the celestron nexstar 8. You have to do a little work to align it but not much and the extra apparture would make everything pop that bit more. It does everything that the meade and the sky prodigy does except autoalign. Once you have aligned it it will track and goto

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/se-series/celestron-nexstar-8se.html

other dealers are available

[Hugechris]

I am sure the C6 tube on the prodigy is good, however the alignment on the Celestron 6SE is very simple, onecan just slew onto the moon say using solar-system align and you are done if all you wish to look at is the moon. The savings on the prodigy will allow you to get a decent zoom eyepiece.

[E621Keith]

I am sure the C6 tube on the prodigy is good, however the alignment on the Celestron 6SE is very simple, onecan just slew onto the moon say using solar-system align and you are done if all you wish to look at is the moon. The savings on the prodigy will allow you to get a decent zoom eyepiece.

Furthermore, the C6 on the 6SE mount is much more stable than a 127 mak on a SLT. By extension the 6SE will be much better than the SLT derived Sky Prodigy mount. The 6/8 SE mount is two steps up from the SLT in Celestron's line. The SLT sits below the 4/5 SE mount. If Celestron isn't confident to sell the C5 SCT on the SLT, then it tells you a lot about what would happen if you mount a C6 on one.

[rowan46]

somebody came up with the same question in cloudy nights

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/5102389/page/7/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1/vc/1

[brantuk]

The Prodigy imho is a bit too "gimmicky" and too small to see a good 90% of objects in its database to any degree of satisfaction. The 6" is a tad on the expensive side as mentioned above (though I'm sure it's got good optics). But you definitely can do better than either scope. For the same price you can get an 8" and have a much better time.

Consider these points before you buy. However interested the familly will be it's highly likely that you will be the only one who really knows how to use it. Not only do you need a good knowledge of the sky to use a goto (or any scope for that matter) but you need to know how to align the finder with the tube, how to polar align if using EQ mounts, how to find objects, how to know what to expect they'll look like, how to look at them, which eyepiece to use, what magnification for which object, how the effects of the atmosphere and seeing conditions affect the view, how and where to point the scope, how to cope with dew and power - and all after knowing how to set it up in the first place. Of course theres much more to it than just these few points.

Even with goto - you need to know what you want to goto. You'll also find that most good views will be had on very dark cold nights in the middle of winter - there will be very little if any hanging outside in the warm summer evenings when it's too light to use a scope. I'm sure you'll be able to tollerate all this yourself - but I suspect the rest of the familly will at best pop out for a quick look then hurry back in the warm - at worst they'll watch from inside the window giggling at you freezing yur nuts off struggling to work the thing until their so bored they go back to their favourite soap. If lucky you'll get one serious young follower.

I'm not trying to be negative - but just trying to point out that reality isn't the "happy familly gathered round the scope" picture you see on the side of some scope boxes. My advice is to rethink your purchase - it's a terrific hobby that you'll get a lot of satisfaction from if you set your expectations more appropriately. Take the advice above - get a good scope and learn how to use it - learn the sky (which incidentally takes a year for just the basics) - and you'll get a lot more satisfaction as well as being better prepared to show the family stuff when they do take an interest. Hope that helps

[NGC 1502]

What a brill post (#15) especially the bit about "the happy family gathered around the scope" in the pics on the scope box (and in the ads too).

Usually they are grinning, and in shirt sleeves as well, who writes this stuff

Cheers, Ed.

[E621Keith]

What a brill post (#15) especially the bit about "the happy family gathered around the scope" in the pics on the scope box (and in the ads too).

Usually they are grinning, and in shirt sleeves as well, who writes this stuff

Cheers, Ed.

It was aimed at the American Market. Celestron HQ is in California right? The concept of cold night must be alien to them.

[pmgsky2]

Many thanks to all for the posts. Like most things there is so much choice that deciding can be difficult

Regards

Peter

[iksobarg]

Ahoy! So I was wondering what happened?

How about a followup?