Customer Reviews

Meade ETX-125PE UHTC Premier Edition Compact Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I got this scope I had tremendous expectations for it. Results on the other hand are somewhat disappointing.
The pros:
- breathtaking views of major sights, especially Saturn's rings and the great nebula in Orion. Fantastic views of the moon (get a neutral density filter), Andromeda galaxy and major (magnitude 7 or less) Messier objects.
- goto function on scope will allow you to see many sights in one night as opposed to spending a lot of time trying to find just one (OK, I'm a very amateur astronomer).
- with proper (and periodic) calibration, the goto function is surprisingly accurate
The cons:
- the mechanical build of the scope is terrible. On the first night out the horizontal drive broke and it took forever to replace. Close examination of it revealed it's just really poorly made (all cheap plastic gears inside)
- the scope does not focus well even when using relatively low magnifications (135x and above) and the focuser is ergonomically poor
- Meade customer support is simply non-existent. You wait endlessly to talk to someone, they promise they'll get back in touch with you, they don't.
Overall, I'm happy to use it though if I ever upgrade to an 8" it certainly won't be from Meade.

I have never had such a bad experience with customer service. My telescope broke after two uses. The horizontal drive mechanism is stripped. If I could get my telescope repaired someplace else, I would. I am absolutely furious at the complete failure on the part of Meade's organization to honor their commitment to repair my ETX-125. They took my money over two months ago now and have done absolutely nothing in return for my $150. This is the most pathetic interaction I have ever had with any purchase in my entire life.

I purchased a warranty plan from Meade 8/29/06. The charge was promptly placed on my credit card, and that is the only thing they have ever done for me. I called a month later for my shipping boxes. No reply. I called a week later and left another message, No reply. I called on 10/19/06, no reply. On 10 23 I talked to someone personally and she promised to look into the matter, took my info and said the manager would qet the messaqe. NO reply. On 10 24 I left a message again. Someone finally returned my call and said he'd send boxes. SINCE THEN I HAVE HEARD NOTHING!

I might as well throw my $1200 telescope in the trash since it broke after two uses and thanks to their bungling I can't get it fixed.

First, don't be like me and start throwing more money at this thing. Filters and eyepieces are OK because you can use them for other scopes, if you have them. I don't. I bought Meade Deep Sky camera. Put it in and then I noticed how limited the travel was, going higher than about 50 degrees (the clearest part of the sky) would hit the camera on the base. So, I bought a prism so I could put the camera in the top and an eyepiece in the back. Now its better, I can go to about 70 degrees but when moving from place to place, it often tries to go past and *bang* *grind* -- there is a setting to limit travel but there must be a catch because it doesn't seem to work (or it is lost on shut-down). I could buy a wedge but I'm tired of spending money on this thing.

I bought a t-adapter to use an SLR camera. The limits on travel are worse (more of a function of the camera) but certainly use a counterweight and expect to strip gears--trust me, even when you think you have it so it won't bottom-out, it will.

The other comment on the cheap nylon gears -- very true. "Drive Fault" will become a key part of your vocabulary.

I've never been able to figure out the satellite tracking. I upload new information and, 30 minutes later, I'm in my yard with some "out of date" message.

When I bought mine, it had a "drive fault" right out of the box. I wish I could remember the "Inspected by" number, clearly one worthless...anyway. Under warranty so they fixed it (shipping was on my dime). A few months ago I pulled off the main lens because I saw dust and wasn't sure where it was. They say not to do this but I figured I couldn't make it worse. I found an inch scrape on the inside of the lens. Looks like it might have occurred when they attached the cone to the inside. Defects in workmanship limited to only 1-year. Nice.

Broke the red-dot lens. Yeah, that was my fault but what a flimsy design.

If you want a scope that you can find stuff quickly, look through the eyepiece, and be satisfied, then maybe this scope isn't a bad choice. For the money, I think there may be better options but it does work for that (at least until the drive fault issue creeps in). Expect it to take very little abuse and routine use counts.

Also, I had some strange software bugs. On more than one occasion, the 'goto' was just dead wrong. I powered off, reset everything (location, time...yes, AM/PM..., date) but it wouldn't even get it in the right neighborhood. So I gave up. A few weeks later, it worked again and I couldn't tell you why. On one occasion it wanted to point down, like it thought I switched hemispheres (I used zip code, not lat/long so no error on my part).

The "goto" has some strange habits. In the alignment phase, if it misses the target it does a spiral search until the target comes into view (a nice feature but have a star chart handy as the brightest star can sometimes be difficult to determine once you start looking through the eyepiece and see some bright star). After some observing, it will drift off a little, usually just a very little, but if you use the drive control to nudge it over, it will want to go back to the intended target. Very frustrating if you find a target and then want to see "what's that over there".

Finally, something to consider with all "goto" scopes, once set, you can't just "slack" the drives and push it to where you want it to go without going through the alignment process all over again.