Buying new telescope.

[arrturro]

Hi everyone.

I'm thinking about buying a new meade LS8 telescope. Does anyone knows if there will be some promotion during the spring/Easter sale? Is it worth to wait or there was never any promotion on that telescope?

Thank you.

[John]

Usually, the only time there are (usually small) discounts on astronomy equipment is around the time of the major astro shows such as Astrofest (February) and possibly the International Astronomy Show (November). The profit margins on equipment are low so generally sales and promotions are very limited.

 

[bingevader]

And sadly, with the demise of Stargazing Live, there's no longer the Brian Cox effect!

[cletrac1922]

1 hour ago, bingevader said:

And sadly, with the demise of Stargazing Live, there's no longer the Brian Cox effect!

Welcome from Land Down Under

Where I am, astro shops usually give 10% discount to astronomy club members

Brian Cox, hosted Stargazing Live, down under almost 12 months ago

The Australian University astronomy site, Canberra, provided a small telescope to school, scout/guide groups, for $5 each

Live TV media cross also to various parts of Oz

Club I belong to, we went into a primary school, and we had about 20+ scopes set-up

The record was set at around 40,000 people looking at the moon at the same time

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-24/stargazing-world-record-announcement/9797184

An amazing night

My club also participates in the International Night of the Moon, which comes up the 5th October, later this year

https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon/annual-event/overview/

John

 

  

[Astro Imp]

42 minutes ago, cletrac1922 said:

My club also participates in the International Night of the Moon, which comes up the 5th October, later this year

https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon/annual-event/overview/

Not heard about this before, thanks for the link.
 

[Gfamily]

Hi

Can I say, I have an LS8, and personally, I would suggest you look for the the same OTA on an alternative mount like the LX90 instead. 

Although the LS8 sounds good in principle, the alignment can often be flaky, which is enormously frustrating. If your experience is anything like mine (and quite a few others), you'll end up perfectly able to do a 2 star alignment yourself almost as quickly as the LS Mount can.

The firmware is notoriously unreliable as well, and you'll probably need to re-flash it from time to time (using a SD MINI card - the one that nobody uses any more....)

The ACF OTA is brilliant though, far better than the mount; so my advice would be to go for the ACF scope, but on a better mount - It'll save you about £300, which you could put towards some eyepieces. 

I've no particular link to Tring Astro, except that they are good supporters of our local annual astronomy festival, and they seem to have good prices 

https://www.tringastro.co.uk/meade-lx90-acf-8-f10-with-standard-field-tripod-10802-p.asp?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjpjkBRDRARIsAKv-0O1azAhYPawzgO1WZ2SMs-dAEfBbLfDg4R2l4csDOlZV0W3OjKN7VksaAj8yEALw_wcB

 

[arrturro]

Thanks for your all answers. I'm pretty familiar with 2 star alignment, I got ETX125 PE LNT so I used to that.

I was just going for a bigger aperture and to make live easier.

I thought meade fixed all the problems with that model, it's been on the market for quite long time.

[cletrac1922]

On 12/03/2019 at 08:01, Astro Imp said:

Not heard about this before, thanks for the link.
 

 

Astro

Thought might find attached interesting

Moon map with respect to North and South Hemispheres, used by JPL/NASA for last years event

Who has more interesting view with respect to detail?

 

John

 

 

[Alan64]

An 8" Schmidt is the "sweet spot" among the varying apertures of the design; good choice.

[Gfamily]

12 hours ago, arrturro said:

Thanks for your all answers. I'm pretty familiar with 2 star alignment, I got ETX125 PE LNT so I used to that.

I was just going for a bigger aperture and to make live easier.

I thought meade fixed all the problems with that model, it's been on the market for quite long time.

I'm absolutely with you about wanting to get more aperture, I'm just concerned about the LS mount. They may have fixed the problems, I don't know. But unless you've heard otherwise I wouldn't assume they've done any work on it. 

Apart from the lower cost, one advantage of the LX90 mount is that it can be mounted on a wedge to give the option of using it in equatorial mode.

[Astro Imp]

@cletrac1922 Thanks for the taking the trouble.
As to your question I'm not sure there is any difference in the views from each hemisphere except you see everything up-side-down?

[LukeSkywatcher]

Its not a given but a few weeks after Christmas is a good time to look for second hand astro gear. Many people get unwanted gifts and sell it online. 

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

Its not a given but a few weeks after Christmas is a good time to look for second hand astro gear. Many people get unwanted gifts and sell it online. 

Not often £2000 scopes, it has to be said...