Meade ETX90 - help needed!

[RobertI]

I’ve offered to help sell a Meade ETX90 on behalf of the family of an astronomy acquaintance who has sadly passed away. 

I have been checking the scope and tested it last and wanted to check a few things to see whether it’s normal. The scope appears to be from 1999 and has a full Autostar goto package. It also has a field tripod. It appears to spotless, collimation was fine but I really to do more visual viewing on a dark night to test the optics. 
 

The questions I have are:

• It slews ok and the goto is fine, but the motors are incredibly noisy when tracking - alt is worse than az- but both noisy - is this normal? 
• There is a lot of play in the alt axis when locked - I don’t think this is backlash in the motors as the scope responds quickly to handset inputs. The scope is front heavy so this isn’t a problem, but if you put a heavy eyepiece in it can move the scope upwards and spoil the alignment. Is this normal and can it be adjusted?
• Anything else I should be checking. 
   

Another thought is what would be a reasonable asking price? There are no eyepieces or finder (the pic shows my 6x30) but it does have a field tripod. I was thinking around £300?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks.

Rob
 

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by RobertI

[Chris]

Hi Rob, I actually owned the basic ETX90 EC version back in 99/2000 which consisted of just the 90mm Mak, fork mount, basic hand controller, but no tripod. Therefore it was purely a table top grab and go type of scope. As such I didn't really bother with the motors and handset, I would just plonk it down somewhere for a quick look at the planets or the Moon. This was the scope I had throughout Uni so I just used it for quick peaks on breaks from essays etc. I also used it's much larger brothers in the form of several LX200's at the Uni's observatory complex, so I learnt a thing or two about Meade scopes back then. If I had to sum them up I would say - Great optics, but not so great electronics. 

I would hazard a guess that a large percentage of ETX's and LX200's from that era have been de-forked due to broken mounts by now, so in a way it's good that it works even though not perfectly perhaps.

So price wise, you can buy the latest Meade ETX 90 Observer package for around £480 currently (399 until very recently), so I would personally post it up for around 250-280 with an honest appraisal and sold as seen.

I reckon most people wouldn't expect a 20+ year old Meade to work flawlessly, but maybe the price should reflect that it's likely on borrowed time with the electronics.

It's very good of you to offer to help with the sale Rob! It must be a distressing time for the previous owners family, so kudos mate, helping each other is a big part of astronomy I feel    

 

 

   

Edited April 27, 2021 by Lockie

[Roy Challen]

10 minutes ago, Lockie said:

I would hazard a guess that a large percentage of ETX's and LX200's from that era have been de-forked due to broken mounts by now, so in a way it's good that it works even though not perfectly perhaps.

I reckon most people wouldn't expect a 20+ year old Meade to work flawlessly, but maybe the price should reflect that it's likely on borrowed time with the electronics. 

Completely agree with this. I had an ETX 70 for the best part of a decade, it got de-forked in the end.

[RobertI]

Thanks Chris and Roy. A great in depth background Chris, I thought I remembered that you had Meades in the past. That’s helped a lot actually, especially with the pricing, as you say, work on the basis that the motors might not have long left. 
 

I actually felt there was a lot to like about the scope including a nice metal screw on objective cap, a nice handset display with a useful little little red torch on the end, easy to use goto and a really nicely finished OTA. I felt the views were a little underwhelming but I was probably expecting too much of the optics, it’s only 90mm with an obstruction and not the most up to date coatings - can’t really compare with a modern 4” apo refractor which I’ve been used to. But it is all in working order - it’s just those noisy motors! 
 

Thanks again - let’s see what happens! 

 

[RobertI]

Just a quick update - I had another session with the ETX90 tonight, this time in manual push to mode, and was more impressed with the views than the previous night. I gave the scope proper time to cool down this time and found it to be a very nice double star splitter, managing the double double in Lyra and spotting Polaris’s faint secondary. Alberio and Algieba both looked very nice. M13 showed nicely with some suggestion of resolution of outer stars and M57 was visible but faint. Despite the very cheap 10mm and 25mm Kellners I was using, there were lovely diffraction rings on the brighter stars. Based on my initial experience, I think I would rate the performance on a par with a good quality modern 70mm refractor. My first experiences with a Mak and all very educational. 🙂

Edited April 30, 2021 by RobertI

[RobertI]

Ok quick update on this, I’ve had no interest on this despite a price drop (probably not helped by the fact that I don’t want to post, so reduced buyer base). I am now considering the forking the scope which I think it’s just a case of undoing two screws - this will allow me to post just the OTA anywhere in the UK and hopefully should be a much easier sale. Any thoughts on what the OTA may be worth?? I was thinking possibly around the £120 mark? Thanks for any help. 🙏 

[Peter_D]

If the optics were made in the U.S. (1999 era - I think they still were), these Meade ETX-90s have a *very* good reputation wrt their optical performance.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Peter_D