Meade ETX-90EC

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Meade ETX-90EC
I got this scope for quick setup use and to travel with and it doesn't disappoint in either respect. Yes it's a bit plasticky and the finder is completely useless, but everything else is perfect for what I wanted in a nice small package complete with it's own mount, which for travel is of course an enormous advantage. I often hear people discussing which refractor they should buy for portability but I needed look no further than this, why spend two or three times the price for a smaller aperture refractor that can't take high magnifications as comfortably? I accept of course that people who have a preference for wide field astronomy should steer clear, but for a planetary and lunar observer like me, the ETX90 takes high magnification on the moon and planets much better than the smaller aperture refractors (250-300x no problem) and has proven to be a very capable little scope. I can't give it a 10 because of its plasticky finish and crap finder but it was very close, and certainly good value when you consider it's 1/7th of the price of a Questar which is the only comparable telescope out there.

Overall Rating: 9
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Meade ETX-90EC
After reading through all the comments, I'll just add something here. My ETX 90 was a gift and so the price was right. But, I will admit to not being very impressed with parts of the scope but the optics are first rate. The bets part though, is when my 12 year daughter saw the rings of Saturn for the first time and my wife saw Orion's nebula better then ever before. Those nights are priceless to me and cheap or not, the ETX90 delivered precisely what it's designed to do. Yes you need to get some extra pieces but I waited for a year before buying some filters and what not. Right now I'm considering making a Dobson but when we travel, it's the ETX that will go with us. I have a recycled motion picture tripod which is not fancy but it works. Given the ETX is really an entry level scope, I think it works very well and has given 2 people I know a lifetime interest in Astronomy. How do you put a price tag on that?

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Meade ETX-90EC
Well maybe its me but I got the first etx90 home and there was a problem with the motors. Took that on eback and got another one. Got this one home and received a motor fault on the autostar. Took that one back and on top of that the merchant at the store gave me a hard time and told me never to come back. Also the focus knob is impossible to reach and the whole thing just seems like a cheap toy. It is pretty though. I bought a nexstar 8 and am very happy with it.

Overall Rating: 5
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Meade ETX-90EC
I have the spotting scope verion,and its amaising ,i took it up to 316 power and trully the immage did not break,yes it was dim but still retained sharpness,i know there are some out there that are not so good ,i can only speak for the scope that i got.....after reading the comments on this site and others i dicided to skip the astro vertion for all the dissatisfacion with it .so im happy with what i have mounted on an altaz mount, no vibratoins no slopiness just solid prformance ....thanks for reading.

Overall Rating: 10
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Meade ETX-90EC
I got this telescope for Christmas and I have used it a lot. I think that the optics are very good. I mainly use it for planetary observing. The views of Jupiter, Saturn and the moon are superb for such small aperture. The only catch is that you need a very stable night. Minimal wind will shake the whole thing and make it impossible even when using the field tripod. The other problem I have is that the plastics parts are too flimsy and I'm always afraid that they are going to break, and they probably will as soon as the warranty expires.
I recommend getting the ETX 125 EC. I feel that most people will outgrow this telescope's capabilities within a few months.

Overall Rating: 8
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Meade ETX-90EC
Got One a couple of years back, I agree with much of what is said above, however It is great If you live in a big city and have no garden and little time to find a dark site. can be purched easily on window sills if care is taken (Cant do this with a Dob). set up time? seconds!

Is superb for casual observing of planets. (this is where the true strengths of this scope are).

Not worth complaining about starhopping because this scope is very limited on deepsky objects. those it can see are quite easy to find.

If you live in a big city and have no garden access and like deep sky objects buy a pair of good bino's

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Meade ETX-90EC
Excellent Star test. Tracking is great if cared for properly. Mount is the only thing that makes the scope an 8 instead of 9 or 10.

Overall Rating: 8
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Meade ETX-90EC
I've had my ETX90/EC for about 10 months now, and I really like it. I would have to agree with most of the earlier comments about it's strengths as well as it's flaws.

Optics: Excellent (for their size). Looking at the moon and planets, the images are very crisp, but 90mm aperture is just not big enough to see much detail in nebulas or spiral galaxies. Also, the long focal length (1250mm) for a scope of this size means that the field of view is pretty narrow, and you will need Autostar or a decent finder (see below) to be able to locate objects.

Portability: Great. I can haul this out, set it on my deck rail, and be tracking bright objects in under two minutes. For a little more serious viewing, I can set up the tripod and do good alignment in about 5 minutes. In the hard case, it's easy to haul on camping trips or to dark sky sites.

Autostar: This is what really sells this scope. Guided tours make it quick and easy to pick and locate interesting objects, especially if you're trying to show off for the non-astronomer family and friends. When properly aligned, it does a very good job of getting the objects into the viewfinder and then tracking them. New software can be downloaded from Meade's web site, and it has improved considerably since some of the earlier reviewers complained about it.

Mechanics: As many have pointed out, they aren't up to the same caliber as the optics. A lot of play in the gears and mounting. On Weasner's Mighty ETX site (www.weasner.com) is an ETX tuneup guide which shows how to take a lot of the slop out of the mechanics. If you don't mind opening the case and digging around, it's a good use of time. On the other hand, for this price, I shouldn't have to be fiddling with the guts to make it work like it should have when it left the factory.

Finder: As many have pointed out, the 8x21 finder is worthless. Because of the way it's mounted, there is not a human on the planet who can get their eye up to it while pointing at the zenith, and it's hard on the neck in many other positions. I added a Daisy red-dot BB gun site to my scope, and it was the best $12 I spent. Without the red dot and/or Autostar, trying to find anything is very frustrating.

Overall Rating: 8
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Meade ETX-90EC
This relates to the optical tube only: Mine came in with a little misalignment,
I removed the back end assembly and realigned it. After this, intra/extra
diffraction patterns were textbook perfect. I removed the glued on secondary
baffle tube which was starting to migrate off center. I then rebaffled the main
tube. Images are extemely sharp and contrasty, I believe it would equal the
Questar I used to own. It is a terrific value!

Overall Rating: 10
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Meade ETX-90EC
Pretty decent optics, lousy mount and diabolical finder! It's amazing just how much better the OTA performs on a different mount.I tried the Field Tripod, and that didn't do much for it, so I placed mine on a Takahashi Teegul mount,and replaced the useless finder (unless you're a leprachaun!) with one from Rigel. What a difference,and at not too great an expenditure! I appreciate that it's aimed at the lower end of the market, but it can be made to perform surprisingly well with a few changes. The optics make it worth the extra money.

Overall Rating: 6
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Meade ETX-90EC
Star test is perfect - beautiful defraction ring around solid Airy disc. Exactly the same inside and outside of focus. Great optics. Brightness very surprising for a 3.5 inch instrument. M13 is well defined with at least two dozen resolvable stars without averted vision (under dark skies). AutoStar works perfectly ***IF YOU PROPERLY TRAIN THE MOTOR DRIVES***. (Hint - get an illuminated reticle eyepiece for this). Tracking is dead on for hours at a time. I only have to align once when I set up, and the scope works flawlessly for my average 4 hour sessions. I am using version 2.0 of the AutoStar software. Excellent all round scope.

Overall Rating: 10
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Meade ETX-90EC
Mount stinks. Too shaky. Optics are actually pretty good. Meade needs to make all their scopes this good optically.

Overall Rating: 7
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Meade ETX-90EC
this was my first scope. i bought it when they first hit the store shelves. since then i added the electric focuser and tripod. i read alot about problems wth the autostar but mine has always worked just fine, it puts the selected object in the field of view every time. the optics are excelent. the electric focuser really helps, its hard to focus without it because the scope shakes to much. the finder scope is usable but difficult. now that i am a little more knowledgable about telescopes, i wish i would have spent a little more money and gone with a small refractor, the tele vue-85 would have been a good choice. it can provide low power wide field views as well as high power. the etx is restricted with its narrow field of view. overall i am happy with the etx and i have had many memorable nights under the stars with it, but i would not recomend it as a first scope. i recomend a 6 inch or 8 inch dob for a first scope, the xt6 or xt8 from orion are good choices and will not drain your bank account. as for me, i have been patiently waiting to hear from astro-physics (one and a half years as of this writing) i ordered a traveler.

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Meade ETX-90EC
I was given the ETX70 as a Xmas gift and three weeks later I had the ETX90. I slowly built up my scope, thanks to ebay, by adding the right angle view finder, tripod, autostar, filters, eyepieces and soft carrying bag - all well below their retail price. It's a complete scope but still after a month or two I purchased the Celestron G8 because I wanted to see the objects bigger. I use my etx not as much as I used to but I can take it canoeing, camping, etc.

The etx's optics are as refined as the G8's. I do enjoy it's usefullness but nothing replaces aperature. I think I found the perfect mix of telescopes.

Overall Rating: 7
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Meade ETX-90EC
I had a bad experience with Meade telescopes before, (The experience was called the ETX70), and I really had my eye on an 8" dob. Then the Natural Wonders mall store announced it was going out of business. I would go in every week out of curiosity to see how far the ETX90 had gone down. During that time, I met a number of people doing the same thing. A surprising percentage of them already owned 8" dobs. They convinced me that portability had its points, and when the ETX90 went down to $321.00 on the last day, I bought it.

This situation put me in a better-than-average position. I had eye pieces and a Barlow from the ETX70. I also had the tripod, and I had put out only about %55 of list price for the scope itself. (I considered the ETX70 price a sunk cost.)
The more normal buyer would have had a scope with one low-power eye piece (albeit a very good one) and no tripod, and no Autostar. At list, that would mean about $500.00 more, or a cool $1100 total. There are ways to do better, of course. One way is to look for an ETX60 on sale for $200, where they throw in the tripod. Another is to consider a larger aperture Meade scope that comes with more stuff, and recognize that the ETX90 price tag is a low-ball.

It may seem that this is all small talk. Actually, though, the rating this scope gets, like any other rating, has to be price-adjusted. At list price, we might be talking 4 or 5 or less, considering that Meade provides better alternatives at comparable prices. With shopping, it goes up to a 7, which is what I gave it.

The optics is very nice, but all the magic in the world isn't going to increase the aperture, is it? Also, the catadioptric design saves tube length and gives designers more things to cull into great views, but those advantages come at a cost. You have to buy a mirror AND an objective lens as well. There are potential problems with chromatic aberration AND with collimation AND with image obstruction. It's not a reflector; it's not a refractor. It's the best of both and also the worst. The design can yield some stunning optics, but it yields some stunning headaches too, and one of them is price. In this price range, one must ask whether money devoted to this design strategy isn't better spent on another, less fashionable strategy. (Like a big Newtonian.)

I saw surface detail on Jupiter with this scope. I got very nice views of Saturn (even with the supplied eye piece), but I have never seen the Cassini division with it. I have observed the phases of Venus. I have never seen surface detail on Mars with it (or with a 13" scope at a local observatory for that matter). My viewing sites are not dark-sky sites by any means, so YMMV. As for deep sky stuff: it does very well for a 90mm scope. Waddya want?

I have never been able to hand-point the ETX90 to anything near zenith, but the finder scope is ok for objects lower in the sky. The Autostart is, in my experience, cumbersome in neighborhood viewing areas where houses and trees get in the way of convenient alignment methods.

Beware of over-enthusiastic reviews for this product. It's a nice scope. Leave it at that. As for me, I'm saving up for a Celestron Dobsonian.

Overall Rating: 7
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Meade ETX-90EC
in response to the above comment, go with one of the dobs from orion instead. they perform better and are built better.

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Meade ETX-90EC
Poor optics, secondary baffle was located halfway accross the secondary. RA motor drive is jerky. Finder is completly useless. Large halo appears around any bright object.

Overall Rating: 4
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Meade ETX-90EC
A superb instrument. It is what it is and that is a lot. It is not comparable with a larger APO, SCT, etc. It is extremely portable, very good optically and a very useable telescope.

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Meade ETX-90EC
I've found the ETX90-RA to be a fine planetary/lunar telescope. It compliments my 6" f/5 Newtonian nicely. The images are very sharp, and 7 out of 10 nights it pays nothing to set up the larger scope to view detailed objects.

I did have an initial problem with the drive gear slipping on the shaft, but since that's repaired, the scope has worked marvelously. I did add a fast/slow feature to the RA drive that gives much greater convenience. I'll be doing photography with it this fall, with a modificed Quickcam Express webcam. The convenience of the telescope definitely adds to the number of nights I observe.

Overall Rating: 8
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Meade ETX-90EC
I got myself an OTA only as I heard the mechanics where suspect on the mount. Using a vixen gpdx this scope was rock solid. then again its almost as big as some of tele vues eyepieces!! ;-) The tube is a svelte blue thing with a sexy screw on lens cap and a built in flip mirror. The finder is small but actually very good, however it is a bit to close to the eyepiece holder. I recommend a visual back as it elemintaes the head to finder interaction and also will take potentially suspect flip mirrors out of the equation.

two issues..... image shift is annoying, get parfocal eyepeices. Second, why the hell cant we colliamate it!

Sadly my scope was dead with awful optics and widely off collimation and was replaced...ill post a rating once I have tested this new scope. On basis of example I have used so far 10 for design and "sooo cute" but 2 for actual astronomy

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