tomcoombs's Full Review: Meade ETX-125PE (500 x 127mm) Telescope
I purchased this telescope for my family late last year and can only say good things about it.
The 125 PE is the latest in the line from Meade and comes in two flavors, standard optical coatings and Ultra high transmission coatings (UHTC). I purchased the UHTC option.
In use, the images are bright and sharp, you can make out the detail on Saturn, detail on Jupiter, see the moons around both of those planets, see lots of deep sky objects such as the Orion nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and many others.
The telescope is very easy to set up and comes with a very sturdy tripod. A word of caution, be careful when you insert the red-dot finder in the LNT module, it is entirely possible to insert it incorrectly and thus not be able to use the red-dot finder at all.
The electronics needs a little setup before its really useful and the manual isn't particularly clear on this point. You should perform the following steps to get good accuracy from the electronic goto system:
1. Calibrate motors
2. Train Drives
3. Calibrate Sensors
Also, when you set the telescope up, be vary careful to level the tripod in both directions (E/W & N/S).
In practice, the Autostar hand controller is really intuitive and easy to use. The menus are well laid out and the star/object directories are comprehensive. For a quick easy observation session, the "Tour" option will pick out all of the good / easy to find objects and slew to them in order.
The telescope can be operated in two modes, either Alt/Az or as a polar-aligned scope. The second option is much better for tracking stars over a longer period of time and you see much less movement in the eyepiece as the telescope tracks the target.
Things you will need in addition to the telescope to enable you to use it consistently:
A flexible focuser
A dew shield
A 12v power cable to power the telescope from your car or from a electric outlet (the telescope really does eat batteries)
Meade often run a promotion where you can purchase an additional kit of the 4000 series Super Plossl eyepieces (5), color filters (4) a moon filter and a Barlow at a reduced rate with the telescope. This proved to be a good decision as an initial purchase for me as you will need more than the 26mm eyepiece supplied with the telescope. I have used everything supplied in that kit and found it to be of good quality.
The stock focuser on the telescope is easy to use, but can sometimes be hard to reach when the telescope is in certain positions in its mount, a flexible focuser fixes this problem. The dew shield is necessary when its cold and there is enough moisture in the air to form a foggy mist of dew on the lens. This has cut several nights short for me.
The telescope can be connected to your laptop and software is supplied that will act not only as a star map, but will allow you to control the telescope using the mouse to select a star on the screen. The serial cable comes with the telescope also.
If you want a telescope that is easy to use as an introduction to astronomy with great viewing and features, this is it.
Ultra High Transmission Coating - Astronomy as easy as pushing a button - Use right out of the box - Level North automatic alignment!More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.