Meade ETX-70 Telescope

this little made in mexico thingie is QUITE GOOD
because of its price point of about USD 350 or so.

for that, you get,
QUITE decent OPTICS,
COMPUTER POINTING ( yes, it moves towards the star!)
two Eyepieces.
many places now give a free tripod. too.
the Hand controller is LIT so you can
not only see ( in the dark )
what its telling you, but
for the 1,000 objects in its database,
it scrolls Few lines of Text ABOUT THEM,
scientific and Historic ,
and EDUCATES YOU.
Fascinating feature in itself, which no one
really mentions on the internet ??

this is not for tiny kids.

you better be gentle n wise with this.
great for INTELLIGENT people of about age 10 and UP.

batteries love to die, in about 2-4 hrs, depends
on brand, and how you charged them.
do not use anything less than 2300 mAH NIMH on these.

get the sony 2300 mAH worldwide charger with batteries
from amazon.... tis a good deal... but most decent
batteries MADE IN JAPAN will work ok.

anyway
it has a few faults too.
you get decent magnification to about 35 x or so.
you can push to about 70x with another eyepiece
but things get FUZZY and difficult bec of the TINY
EYEHOLE in such power pieces.

at 70x... one can barely discern the rings of Saturn
and see jupiter...( fuzzy ) and its 4 moons like tiny
jewels. Remember, Saturn and Jupiter seem only like
1-2 millimeters ( VERY TINY ) in these scopes,
but
your Eye / Brain does the trick so nicely
that you FEEL you are seeing much more.


even at 35 x .. the MOON IS SUPER AWESOME.

remember, this thing TRACKS TOO.
this planet of ours , moves, so whatever you see
in view will be out of view with nontracking scopes.
this thing tracks ok.. at 35x mag.. for about 15-20 mins.

at 70x.. mag...
things will stay wihin view for about 3-5 mins .
yup
the mechanism is nothing super.

but GOOD ENUFF for few mins of serious viewing.

you can try to take fotos.. but good luck.
at lower mags, i stuck my Digicam into the eyepice
and got semi fuzzy fotos but large, of the moon !
not bad.

you can take out the back plastic cover, move up
the internal mirror, and essentially it becomes
a 350mm tele lens.. too.

the other advantage with this little guy
is the WIDE ANGLE OF VIEW THAT OTHER BIG SCOPES
cannot deliver.

if you merely want Low mag.. about 13x.. or so...
and WIDE WIDE views of the nite sky...
GET THIS SCOPE JUST FOR THAT even !
wonderful breathtaking views.

from even the most polluted cities in the world...
you will see SOME nice heavenly shows ,
such as jupiter and 4 moons, saturn, ( both TINY)
venus, ( has anyone seen mercury? on any scope ?)
and if you use the PROPER SOLAR FILTERS
YOU HAVE THE WONDERS OF SOLAR VIEWING TOO.
not to mention lots of stars, constellations,
star clusters, and others on this scope.

if you are lucky enuff to be away from huge
light pollution of cities and towns
you will see just about ALL The things
on this little scope's database.

The computer tracking and finding of stars
and objects, planets, etc.. is quite good
if you do the initial " alignment "
procedure nicely.
dont worry, after about 5 times, you are pro at it.

do be gentle.
DO NOT FORCE This scope ..
be gentle.. or you will mesh up the plastic gears.

make sure you buy from a good shop
who can do quick minor repairs. too.
you might need it within the first year.

one day, that motor will die. years from now.
even then, you still have decent optics.
KEEP it.. forever.
always useful

and it will GUIDE YOU , EDUCATE YOU,
AND
FIND FOR YOU
the stars on its database...

you need not know anything at all about the sky
and stars.
this is your first teacher.
and its cute, fun, and so easy to pick up and put
on any table or ..if you want, use the free tripod
they give you nowadays too.

keep extra batteries...
always.

have fun
and say hi to Orion for me !

thanks.