SCOPE COMPARISONS Last updated: 17 June 2001

Sent:	Sunday, June 17, 2001 8:53:21
From:	rlestesm@bellsouth.net (Bob Estes)
Last night's wonderfully clear skies coincided with the local astronomy
club's "dark site" star party, providing an excellent opportunity to
compare my ETX-125 to larger scopes. Like some other correspondents, I
had casually considered "moving up" to the LX-90; but after last night,
I would now consider such a change to be "sliding sideways and up just a
bit."

Scopes in the vicinity included 2 8" dobs (one Meade, one Orion) and a
larger 12" dob. Deep sky objects were a bit brighter in the larger dobs,
but the only ones which were appreciably better visualized were M81 and
M82. All of the globulars were very comparably resolved (M3, M5, M13,
M92, M11, etc.) and the Ring, Swan, and Trifid nebulas were minimally
different in the 8 inchers. The 12" did have a significantly brighter
view of the Swan - as would be expected. If anything, Mars looked a bit
better in the 125.

Obviously, the dark skies made the difference for the 125. Globular
clusters which had appeared somewhat fuzzy in suburbia were clearly
resolved away from town. Setup and take-down took 5 minutes each, and
everything (including folding chairs) fit easily in the trunk of my
compact car with room to spare. Each user will need to individually
assess his or her particular situation, but I would encourage current
ETX-125 users to try to compare images side-by-side if possible before
spending a lot of money for what may be a very minimal difference in
your viewing experience.

Bob Estes (Nashville)

Go back to the User Observations page.

Go back to my ETX Home Page.