Alan--

I bought a 10" Equatorial Starfinder when I decided to buy a "real"
telescope, and it was a good choice. It was easy to use; its RA tracking
was quite good, with the most casual of polar alignments. It's fairly easy
to collimate. Anything larger gets really difficult to handle; anything
smaller will cause a noticeable difference in what you can see. The mount
is not ideal, but I found it to be completely adequate, and easy to set up.

I am glad that I chose an equatorially mounted scope with a drive, since I
find it really annoying, when gazing at something for a long time (like
Saturn), to have to keep moving the scope. BTW, I saw some amazing detail
on Jupiter and Saturn, when the skies were particularly calm and clear.

I live in light polluted urban/suburban skies, and I see very little
galactic detail, either with my old Starfinder or with my present 10" LX200
(purchased to replace the Starfinder after I felt that I had served my time
of looking FOR things, and wanted to spend all my time looking AT things).
If you have really dark, rural skies, you can see some good detail on some
galaxies. I agree with Al's comments below about what kind of detail you
can expect to see on good nights.

Bottom line--I thought that the 10" Equatorial Starfinder was a great choice
for me, and I heartily recommend it for someone else starting to get serious
about this hobby. I will warn you, though, that I had to replace the
horrible focuser and inadequate finder, and get a Telrad, before I could use
the scope to find deep sky objects.

--Mark de Regt

-----Original Message-----
Al
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 7:58 AM
Subject: [M]: Re: Meade Starfinder Equatorial 10"


10" of aperture offers enough light grasp to view all of the objects listed
below. While Pluto can be viewed, it will appear very much like one of the
background stars. A view of Pluto is usually disappointing for the first
time viewer.

There are other considerations, besides aperture, which will limit the
effectiveness of any telescope...one of them is the mount. The mount on
this telescope, combined with this large OTA, is _not_ an ideal combination.
For the money, I believe you may be better off selecting a Dob. The same
price tag will buy you a Dob with 2 or 3 inches more aperture.

Al


----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 9:54 AM
Subject: [M]: Meade Starfinder Equatorial 10"


>
>
> Hello,
>
> I just joined this list recently in hopes to gain some knowledge about
> Meade telescopes and telescope use in general, so I can decide which scope
> would be best for my needs. I am considering purchasing the Starfinder
> Equatorial 10" but I have some questions I hope that someone on this list
> can answer. First of all, what is the best average visual magnitude that I
> can expect to see with this particular scope under average seeing
> conditions? Would it be possible to see Pluto or some of the larger moons
> of the outer planets like Uranus and Neptune or would I need a scope with
a
> larger appiture to accomplish this? I'm also interested in looking at
> asteroids and comets as well as deep sky targets. Any comments?
> suggestions? Thank you for your help/answers in advance.
>
> -Alan Workman
>
>
>
>

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