Meade 12" LX600 ACF Telescope with Starlock
- Aperture: 12"
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- Focal Length: 2438mm
- Optical Design: ACF Cassegrain
Meade 12" LX600 ACF Telescope with Starlock
The Meade LX-600 Telescope is a simple to operate, portable package that makes taking great Astrophotos as easy as focusing your camera and opening the shutter. The exceptional optical system and integrated collection of features and technology found in Meade’s LX-600 is truly unparalleled.
The LX600 integrates a unique star tracking and object finding system into the telescope mount. This integration allows the telescope to center your target perfectly in the field of view. Once centered, the star tracking system communicates directly with the motor drives to automatically assure your scope stays locked onto its target with arcsecond precision. The automated optical tracking system delivers long-exposure guiding with pinpoint stars on Astroimages despite misalignments, atmospheric refraction, periodic or other mechanical errors. New f/8 Advanced Coma-Free Optical System: Meade has completely redesigned the OTAs with a new mirror mounting and focusing system to achieve zero image-shift and a two-speed microfocuser. The scope features faster f/8 ACF optics giving you pinpoint stars all the way across the field of view.
KEY FEATURES
- Internal Crayford-style 7:1 Focuser-The completely redesigned mirror mounting system achieves zero-image shift, eliminating the need for a mirror lock and integrates a two-speed micro-focuser for quick and easy adjustments.
- Solid Fork Mount w/ Heavy Duty 5.75" Gears-Large, high-quality worm-gear drives in both axes provide smooth movements with low periodic error, providing the freedom to go horizon to horizon without any meridian flip.
- Giant Field Tripod-With 3-inch diameter chromed steel legs and cast aluminum tripod head - adjustable from 34 inches to 54 inches - the Giant Field Tripod provides a research-grade foundation for the LX600.
- Alt-Az Mode-makes for the best visual and short exposure experience possible. The LX600 performs LightSwitch fully-automated self-alignment.
- StarLock Technology- centers your target in the eyepiece and track with arcsecond accuracy so you can concentrate on the beautiful, wide fields of pinpoint stars created by the superb f/8 ACF optical system.
- AutoStar® II GoTo System- puts over 140,000 objects at your fingertips and delivers the fastest GoTo performance available.
Included Technology
Advanced Coma-Free Optics (ACF)
Building from a classic RC design, Meade created a new design with coma-free pinpoint star images and flatter field. The ACF design reduces astigmatism and eliminates dffraction spikes found in classical RCs. TheACF is the perfect plattfor for the demanding researcher and imaging enthusiast with telescopes available in aperture of 6-inches, 8-inches,10-inches, 12-inches, 14-inches, and 16-inches
Smart Drive
Smart Drive, or permanent periodic error correction, permits a professional level of drive-trate precision. The significant value of the Smart Drive is immediately appreciated during long-exposure astrophotography, where the resultant lower periodic error of the system enables improved tracking while minimizing guide corrections"
Smart Mount
Smart Mount improves the pointing accuracy of your telescope "GoTo: system. Despite Careful efforts to reduce mount flexure and improve pointing accuracy, telescopes may still fail to precisely center objects. Smart Mount allows your telescope to learn about, and then correct for, any systematic pointing errors, regardless of the cause. Smart mount is recommended for use with permanently mounted telescopes."
Starlock
This revolutionary new technology Makes target acquisition and accurate guiding completely automatic. Provides computer assisted polar drift alignment using an f/5 80mm optic and two camera sensor system. Starlock automatically programs periodic error correction achieving guiding accuracy up to 1 arc-second and can guide on stars as faint as 11th magnitude
Ultra-High Transmission Coatings (UHTC)
Specialized Multi-layered coating that are preciesely designed to improve the performance of your telescopes optics. You'll see brighter star clusters, more fine details in nebulas, and more surface features on planets with UHTC than without. Averaged over the entire visible spectrum, total light transmission to the focus increases by 15%.
SPECIFICATIONS
| Computerized | Computerized |
|---|---|
| Free Shipping | Yes |
| Freight | Yes |
| Hand Controller Included | AutoStar II |
| Manufacturer | Meade |
| Mount Design | Alt/ Azimuth |
| Mount Type | Computerized GoTo |
| Optical Design | Modified SCT |
| Software Included | AutoStar Suite |
| Telescope Aperture | 305 mm (12") |
| Telescope Focal Length | 2438mm |
| Telescope Focal Ratio | f/8 |
| Warranty | 1 Year Warranty |
INCLUDED ITEMS
- 12" LX600 ACF Telescope with Starlock Guide System
- Autostar II Controller
- 8x50 Finderscope w/ Bracket
- Crayford 7:1 Focuser
- Heavy Duty Fork Mount
- Giant Field Tripod
Customer Reviews
- Reviews
- Questions
United StatesInitial shipment problems and bad first scope.
The tracking number I received had a typo in it. So the shipment my tracking number was linked to was a scope that had been delivered two days earlier to another part of the country. My scope arrived while I was trying to resolve the tracking number discrepancy with the OPT customer service folks. The first OTA received would not power up at all on battery power. OPT customer service pointed me to Meade Customer support (which had already closed by that time so I had to wait all weekend). Customer service at Meade has been good but took time to organize a replacement OTA. The replacement is arriving on Friday (two weeks after the first) and we'll see if that scope operates properly. Note: Once I received the external power adapter (not supplied with the scope) the first OTA runs on external power but still does not run on the battery power.