Meade LX90 vs Skywatcher Skyliner 200 Dob

[richwilliams]

Hi,

Been a lurker here for some time and it's about time I posted. Bit of a strange question maybe, but bear with me.

My dad has a Meade LX90 8" which he's had for about 6 years. I've used it with him a fair few times and now I've decided it's time to buy something. 

Now while I'm impressed with the LX90 and it's goto and tracking, I ain't got best part of £2k to be parting with.

I have been looking at the Skywatcher Skyliner 200 or maybe a 250 which both get favourible reviews here. As much I'm impressed with the goto features of the LX90, I do not want goto as I want to learn to find things manually. Much more rewarding to me.

My question is will the Skywatcher have decent images after using the Meade? I realise I will have to upgrade the eye pieces etc. on the Skywatcher but once I do will I get similar quality viewing as the Meade? I realise the huge difference in price and something gives. I guess the bulk of the price in the Meade is down to all the electronics.

Anyone used both scopes and can compare? Many thanks.

Cheers, Rich

[NGC 1502]

Hi Rich.   Welcome to SGL.

To answer your question - I used to own a SW 200 Dob that I used a lot, and a local clubmate currently owns an 8" LX90 that I've looked through a number of times for deep sky and planetary views.

My Dob was always kept collimated and cooled to ambient temp before use, as is my clubmates LX90.

I prefer the views through the SW Dob.  With upgraded eyepieces it delivered better planetary views, and for deep sky was more versatile - the 1200mm focal length allowing lower power, and wider field, but of course a low power 2" eyepiece that works well is not cheap.     An F6.3 converter is of course available for the LX90 that helps for wider field.

Now I'm not trashing the LX90 at all.   This time last year I had a session with my clubmate and his LX90 and the go-to did allow us to unravel  a lot of the many galaxies in the Virgo / Coma cluster - and 7 years ago I did a session with a Dob from a dark site, Markarian's chain was easy to make out, and galaxy hopping from that revealed lots more, but it's easy to get confused as to which fuzzy patch is which.    But most of the time I'm more than happy to find stuff the low-tech way, great fun.   The LX90 planetary views are not bad at all, but I honestly feel that the SW Dob had the edge.   

For the money, if you can live without the go-to, a SW Dob is such great value.  I only changed mine for my current Dob because someone I know and trust was selling an as new scope for a great price.

If I can help further, please ask, Ed.

[richwilliams]

Hi Ed,

Massive thanks for the detailed response. A great help. I will be ordering the Dob soon

I'll keep you all posted.

Cheers, Rich

[alfingido]

I have an LX90 ACF now and a while ago I sold an older model and bought a refracter and a 300mm dob. There is no doubt views through the dob were spectacular, but after using a goto, I found the dob cumbersome to use. I guess you get used to it and it certainly is rewarding when you find your first faint dso object, but that excitement, (for me) waned as I spent hours nudging and trying to find fainter objects. I found myself using the 80mm frac on a goto mount more and more.

I can't compare an 8" dob to my 8" Meade, but I would think there would be little difference in the views.

Dew is a problem for both at the moment but that can be reduced with dew shields or heaters.

If I were buying a dob now, I would go for an Orion intelliscope or Skywatcher Goto, just to have the wizardry to switch on when I got fed up trying to find things.

Allan

[russ.will]

I've had a couple of 8" Newts (Explorer 200p and OOUK VX8-L 1/10) and currently have an 8" LX200 ACF - basically the same OTA as the LX90, but a much beefier mount.

I'll say that I personally think 8" is a sweet-spot of size of (any) scope under UK skies as it strikes a nice balance between light grasp and seeing through instability at higher magnifications. In that respect, it's win-win.

With an 8" Dob mounted Newt, you will have access to views that will rival pretty much any scope at that aperture, regardless of price and there is no other scope that will allow you to manually learn the sky so proficiently. If that's the raison d'etre of this scope, then it's argument over - No need to look further and it's a pot of cash saved.

The caveat is that you need to keep on top of collimation to make sure the higher power views deliver everything they can and that being Dob mounted, it's going to achieve some angles that will mean uncomfortable grovelling around.

Ignoring that you don't want GOTO, the 8" SCT still has some advantages, especially if it's an ACF - Pin point stars across the field of view, no matter how low in magnification you go, is one. I also personally feel that the SCT is better on planets as it just 'seems' to deliver higher magnifications with ease. I know the maths say it shouldn't, but in my experience, it does more regularly. More to the point, it's a lot easier to achieve a comfortable position at the SCT that will let you take the extended time at the EP planets need. In the Dob at high mag, even if the planet is high enough to be comfortable, you'll always be nudging to chase it and that will happen more often in the Dob, because image quality suffers through coma toward the edge of field.

The long focal length of an SCT is less demanding of EP choice, although of course it will show better views with better EPs, just like the Dob.

The thing is, in a perfect world, you'd have more than one scope anyway, so the old Newt v SCT debate is irrelevant. They all have their strengths and anybody who says one is innately superior, is wrong. That said and as you know what you're letting yourself in for, an 8" Dob is the place to start. One day, you'll wish you hadn't sold it.

Russell

[alfingido]

I think you are right with 8" being the sweet spot for viewing here in the UK. As well as the 300mm dob ( Flextube flavour) I had a 10" Lx200 and a Celestron 9.25. 

The dob gave me a bigger view, as did the others, but none of them gave me a substantially clearer or crisper view than my UHTC  LX90, and thats the reason I bought another.

The ACF enables you to let your eye do the work, everything in the FOV is sharp as a pin and despite the common held belief that ACF doesn't improve views visually, I find it does.

Bang for buck though, you won't beat a good 8" dob. 

Allan

[goldblade1983]

You could get a goto dob

[Chris]

I've owned a 200p Dob and two 8" SCT's. You can't lose with either really, both great scopes. I would say that I prefer planets through my SCT, but I think the 200p Dob wins on DSO's. My SCT wins on comfort and portability. The 200p Dob wins on price.

Throw a coin

[richwilliams]

Great comments above. Thanks very much