Refractor brands

[Gthom]

Planning a telescope purchase, thinking about an ED APO refractor, both for visual and astrophotography, I see that my local dealer has Meade, Sky-Watcher and Explore Scientific as in-stock brands. Are there any general experience with these three, as compared to each other? Should I look for other brands elsewhere?

[ronin]

A lot depends on what you want to spend and the major usage.

An ED 80 is still likely to give a little CA when used.

This tends to be mainly on visual and bright objects - things like the odd star, or a planet.

There can be arguements over ED and apo, many claim apo but the one factor dropped is the control of 3 wavelengths and an ED will only control 2. Then it becomes a case of do you "see" it and does a camera see and reproduce it. As mentioned the object tends to need to be bright for CA and many DSO's are anything except bright so it is not a problem.

Who is good/not so good is difficult.

If money were not a factor then something with an LZOS triplet lens on say an APM scope is about as good as you will get, but you are looking at an 80mm for 4000€.

As mentioned what is the main use to be?

If imaging then really a good 80mm triplet is the thing, WO GTF-81, even the Star-71 which is excellent, but not really a visual scope, especially the Star-71.

The ES scopes seem pretty good and are a good price, the 80mm Alu Essential seems a good item. Equally the 102 looks good, bit slower for imaging but bit bigger for visual. The 127 is likely too heavy for imaging - no idea what mount you are considering.

Do read of problems on the add on bits, finders etc.

Hard to say as I have 2 William Optics refractors and given the chance would get another of them, but the ES 102 Alu Essential looks interesting.

Will say trying to work out the difference between the Alu Essential 102 ED APO triplet at 850€ and the 102 ED APO triplet at 1350€. Guess it is different ancillary bits and that the optics are the same. But that is 500€ difference.

To a puriest the ES are not FPL-53, but at f/7 the glass should not have a problem producing a good quality image.

To my thinking the ES 102 is a scope for both imaging and visual, if you want a bit of each then both have to compromise.

You may find that the Meade and the ES refractors are in effect the same, there was a fair bit of mixing of Meade and ES in the past, when Sunny acquired Meade it appears that there still is some cooperation at least as far as the refractors are concerned. So if there is a significant cost difference check the optical specifications for each as they could be the same.

[Lowjiber]

...

You may find that the Meade and the ES refractors are in effect the same, there was a fair bit of mixing of Meade and ES in the past, when Sunny acquired Meade it appears that there still is some cooperation at least as far as the refractors are concerned. So if there is a significant cost difference check the optical specifications for each as they could be the same.

I don't know Sunny, but I do know Scott Roberts of Explore Scientific.  I can almost guarantee that Scott is not about to "mix" ES's quality reputation with any Meade product.

[John]

I don't know Sunny, but I do know Scott Roberts of Explore Scientific.  I can almost guarantee that Scott is not about to "mix" ES's quality reputation with any Meade product.

Scott is an ex-Meade Vice President I believe. As ES is actually owned by Jinghua (JOC) I guess all ES stuff is manufactured by them. I thought Meade had also been acquired by JOC in 2013 so they are all one big happy family now

"I am especially pleased with this global reunion with Meade. I believe it will give us a rare opportunity in our industry to combine the best of what all of our companies have to offer," stated Scott Roberts, President of Explore Scientific LLC, which will manage operations of Meade after the acquisition.