Advice on different 8" schmidt

[Hatan]

Hi,

I'm starting to look to upgrade my current small telescope for a 8" schmidt-cassegrain. I did look at meade and Orion/Celestron and I found some models that almost all look the same on paper but I guess the differences lies in the coating/optic/mount and I wanted to have some feedback on them.

I will most likely use it for astrophotography (both moon/planet and DSO) as well as visual observation.

Here are the models I found:

meade LXD75 F/10 2" focuser 1500$ with goto
Orion skyview pro XLT F/10 1.25" focuser 1550$/1900$ (with/without goto)
Orion sirius eq-g XLT F/10 1.25" focuser 1900/2200$ (without/with goto)
celestron c8-s-GT XLT F/10 1.25" focuser 1514$ with goto

anyone have any recommandation on those and/or if you know anything that would fit better for this price range.

Thanks a lot

[Kaptain K]

The Orions and the Celestron all use the same OTA. The differences are in the mounts. All have Celestron's XLT coatings.

[Dave Mitsky]

The Chinese company Synta bought Celestron a year or two ago so all the SCTs that Orion sells, whether they are branded Orion or Celestron, come from Synta now.

Dave Mitsky

[Siguy]

The Chinese company Synta bought Celestron a year or two ago so all the SCTs that Orion sells, whether they are branded Orion or Celestron, come from Synta now.

Dave Mitsky

I thought that Imaginova (http://www.imaginova.com/) bought Orion and Celestron, and they both get stuff manufactured by Synta (http://www.toytradeb2b.com/work/b_index.jsp?supplier=SUPP25990&industry=TY).

[winensky]

I purchased the SN 8" LXD75 three months ago. The mount is the weak link. While the new LXD 75 mount is reasonably stable, I have been limited to 2min unguided shooting so far and, while this is improving as I train the Periodic Error Correction, I suspect the upper limit will be 5 min unguided.

Check the comparative weights of the two 8" scopes. If the SC is any heavier you my have trouble with stability especially if you intend to piggyback eventually. Additionally. At f4, I only need about half the exposure time as the SC will.

The latest version of the go to is suprisingly accurate with the high precision mode easily centering objects in a 20mm eyepiece. This helps with finding very faint objects.

I won't comment on optics as they are two comletely different systems.

Wish there was a perfect scope in that price range. If you find one let us all know!

Kind regards
Matt

[Dave Mitsky]

I thought that Imaginova (http://www.imaginova.com/) bought Orion and Celestron, and they both get stuff manufactured by Synta (http://www.toytradeb2b.com/work/b_index.jsp?supplier=SUPP25990&industry=TY).

Imaginova has owned Orion since early 2005. Synta bought Celestron in April of the same year.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3309951.html

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3310211.html?page=1&c=y

Dave Mitsky

[tre475]

My friend purchased Meade LXD75I for me last week for christmas. I was very pleased when I received this telescope. It was big. I like it very much, and my friend got it at good deal price of $1350
http://www.dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=73726
I was very impressed that for the price one could get such a nice telescope. It really is a bargain.