Meade 5000 ED80 APO - First Light

[BlueAstra]

Over the past few weeks I have been investigating which widefield scope to choose to complement my C8. I'd reduced the short list to a Meade 5000 ED80 APO, SW ED80, and a Megrez 90. Last weekend at Astrofest was an ideal opportunity the get some more advice on the best choice.

I spoke to a few of the people there and discovered that apart from the SW ED80 all the other scopes were in very short supply. I was very tempted by a show offer for the Megrez 72 at the WSC, and there were quite a few +100mm refractors around unfortunately they were beyond my budget. The bigger refractors also had longer focal lengths that reduced the field of view.

I finally discovered a company (Scopes n Skies) with a Meade 5000 in stock at the depot, and with a good show discount decided to buy. I also got some good advice from Ian King on field flatteners, and came away with a Televue FR/FF. The scope arrived yesterday, very good service from SnS! Very nice metal case, and a Meade 2" diagonal included.

Its traditional that the arrival of a new scope brings with it cloudy nights for the forseeable future, but in this case the night was clear! I mounted the scope on the back of the C8 with my custom bracket. Spent ages with the EQ6 alignment for some reason, but eventually took a tour round with the Meade. I don't have a widefield EP, just a 25mm C E-Lux, but the views were great. Widefield vistas with lots of stars and great contrast. The Pleiades were magnificent.

I attached my camera and took a couple of unguided shots of the Pleiades (150s), no flats, etc available. Enough there to see the widefield option in use! The two shots show the FOV difference between the C8+FR and the ED80+FR/FF. I now need to tweak the scope attachment to the C8, and figure out how to use my OAG on the C8 without an imaging camera (its on the ED80). My intention is to flip between the two scopes, one for guiding, one for imaging, depending on the target FOV requirements. All in I'm very impressed with my first view with the Meade.

[red dwalf]

very nice scopes, there was alot of choice at the astrofest, got the plastic out and almost, almost, bought that skywatcher 100 ed ds that was on offer for sale, very nice bit of kit

[David Pavlich]

I had one. Very nice scope! However, Astronomics had some TMB80SS blems for a very good price so I grabbed one, so I sold the Meade.

David

[AstroManDan]

Can you say what you paid for it?

Also did it come with a dual speed focuser?

Thanks

Daniel

[BlueAstra]

I can't remember the exact price, but I think it was in the region of £480 ish. It was a show 'offer'. Its got the original single speed focusser , but i've not really had a problem with it. I use a small Bahtinov mask to get exact focus on a bright star, and always get it bang on with the focusser. It came in a nice metal padded case with a Meade diagonal. You need to mount it using the attached bar otherwise you can't use the built in rotation feature. If you mount using tube rings the focusser does not rotate independently like some other makes.

[ollypenrice]

If you haven't got a 2 speed one good trick is to contrive an extended lever (eg held on by Junilee clip) to make imaging focus easier. TeleVue make a smart one for their scopes.

Olly