Meade 125 PE telescope

[ultramol]

Is the meade 125 mak telescope any good. Can I put my canon 350d on it at prime focus to image the moon. Does the level north work or is it just a gimmik. Thank you in advance.

[NGC 1502]

The Meade ETX Maks are great optically.  Only issue here is that you can't get very low power and wide field views. For Moon, planets, double stars and many deep sky objects - fine, but for large objects like the Pleiades, best get your binos out.   The 125 Maks (and Maks in general) need a bit of cooldown time after bringing out from a warm house. If you can store it somewhere cool, that helps.

Many users find the mount works fine, others have had problems.

This link http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html contains almost everything you need to know.

Regards, Ed.

[ultramol]

Cheers Ed, very comprehensive answer to my questions.

[ronin]

Level and North start works fine if you are pointing it North and it is level.

Being a Mak the field of view is narrow, so if you aim it at say Polaris then level the OTA what happens ids the scope will slew to say Arcturus.

If you had a 25mm eyepiece in then the view through the eypiece is 0.8 degrees.

As Polaris is just over 1 degree off the true True North then the scope slews to a position that is more the 1 degree from Arcturus and you see nothing. Especially when you cnsider that he start is +- 1/2 degree across as it is centre to edge.

So if you get one also get an eyepiece with as big a view as possible, doesn't matter how good the image is you simply just want a wide view, even if the star is a bit of a splat and not a point.

Had the same problem when I got an ETX-105. I went out and bought a 40mm plossl, the next morning.

Get, if not supplied, a bubble level, Scopes and Skies sell them. Ignore a magnetic compass - not the same as true north. Level the base of the ETX and level the OTA. They do come with an RA finder so set that up but again set it up accurately. Make sure the RA finder is there, they are hard to come by.

They are a scope that need a bit of time spent on the set up.

[ultramol]

Many thanks....

[GeohanSolo]

Hi guys

This is my first post in here, so bear with me. I have the Meade 125 ETX, but I have had a hard time using my canon dslr with a T-mount. The few images of stars I have shot, have been heavily distorted by star trails. Since I tried it a few times in the Autumn, I havent take it out since October. I suspect the equatorial mount to move in mechanical "steps" so that it is not following the sky in a smooth movement. The last time I was out, I got so annoyed with the star trails on long exposures, that I havent tried since. I recently bought a 70-200 L series canon lens with a 1.4x extender. It gives decent shots, but lacks the equatorial mount, so I am limited to short exposures.

I hope some of ou may have tried something similar, and possibly have a solution for the issue?

Best, Solo

[NGC 1502]

Hi Solo, welcome to SGL.

I'm afraid I don't do imaging, so best if I don't try to help with that, except to say you stand a better chance of advice if you try one of the imaging sections.

Regards, Ed.