need advice

[starstalker]

i have been offered a 5 year old lx90 10" with LNT and 2 superwide meade eyepieces plus the usual bits and pieces(filters,powerpack etc) for £700, the guy says he spent about £3000 on it all, my questions are: is this a good deal? is the scope ok for astrophotography? as i will have to sell my current scope(in sig) to help fund this. also is it worth the hassle ie am I gonna see that much more with this instead of my skywatcher 200p?

[Capricorn]

Not a nice choice in some ways.

The LX90-ACF 10" is presently £2249 at Greenwitch. (This is simply the first one that appears similar in their line up)

It should collect about 50% more light then an 8".

But as the Greenwitch site says it is heavy. They say "If you can handle the weight..."

Remember that with your present set up you ccan take the mount out then take the scope out and assemble. With the LX the scope, forks, base and motors are all one.

I presume that astrophotography isn't a consideration.

If the extra aperture appeals and the weight isn't a problem, then really it sounds a good deal.

Have you had the chance to power it up and look through it, as that would also give a good indication that all the electronics and motors are operating also.

[starstalker]

yes astrophotgraphy is a consideration, am i gonna need a wedge? also the guy has said i can borrow it for a couple of days to try it out.

[starstalker]

anyone else have any advice?

[Moonshane]

I am sure this is a great scope and from the price of new ones seems like a good price. one thing to consider is that it has a 2500 focal length and therefore you'd need eyepieces 2.5x longer focal length to get the same field of view compared with your current scope. eg if you used a 25mm eyepiece in the newt, you'd need a 62.5mm eyepiece in the Meade assuming the same eyepiece field of view.

I may be wrong but I suspect this is more of a planetary/lunar scope than the newt which is more of an all round scope. Others may disagree with this.

I am not an imager and for me there's no contest, I'd retain the newt and for the same additional money buy a bigger one as well as some more eyepieces.

[starstalker]

I must admit that if this came up 3 months ago I would have bit his arm off, but i love my newt so much for it's " all roundedness" I am edging towards keeping the skywatcher, what would be ideal is to keep both but i just can't afford them. :0(

[ollypenrice]

Honestly, for deep sky astrophotography I wouldn't go near it. For planetary webcamming, yes, very good. But for deep sky it needs incredibly accurate tracking for its immense focal length and the fork mounts do not reliably provide that. (I am expressing my own opinion very conservatively in saying that!) As for polar aligning wedges, again (for me) a horrible experience and a total non starter for the mobile astronomer. Bad enough in an observatory, as I was and am. In the field, no thanks. If you look on the deep sky imaging boards there are very few fork SCT images and lots of images taken with small refractors along with some from Newts. For DS imaging you would also need a focal reducer and sensible Crayford focusser since the moving mirror on Meades is not viable for imaging (again in my view.)

The big SCTs go very cheaply on the used market largely, I think, because they have no following amongst deep sky imagers. 10 inch LX200s are often on offer at less than £1000. I have one and keep it for visual use on a GEM.

But, but... a decent sized scope for visual observing (the view at that focal length is a little cramped) and a good planetary imaging device.

Would I buy another? No.

Olly

[Moonshane]

I really don't know what the larger SCTs are capable of other than higher mag narrow field stuff so do take other advice but in my eyes, there are plenty of 5-6" versions of them or similar which apparently work really well and you could buy the OTA only, running it off your EQ5. You don't really need a lot of aperture with planets, moons and doubles. my 6" dob, murders my 12" for planets and (albeit less so) lunar. eg (and I don't know this scope) Maksutov - Skywatcher Skymax 127 OTA

[starstalker]

some great advice there as always guys, im gonna keep my SW gonna pass on the meade, i would love to have both but unless the missus gets it for my birthday its just not gonna happen lol!! thanks again guys!

[angusb1]

I believe this scope is compatible with a hyperstar conversion. That would give you a focal ratio of f1.8 and a focal length of 457mm. If you wanted to mount it on a GEM though for astrophotography with an OTA weight of almost 25kg you would be pushing the limits of an EQ6 so a fair bit of cash would be needed for the mount as well as £950 for the hyperstar kit. F1.8 at 254mm aperture would be cool though, and the OTA is quite short making balancing more straightforward than a newtonian of equivalent aperture. With the fast focal ratio and short focal length you would be able to use it for astrophotography on its fork mount as long as it was for short exposure times, saving the price of a GEM. You would also only be able to use ccd cameras with the hyperstar conversion, dslrs are too much of an obstruction.