9.25 vs Meade 7 Mak

Has anyone made a comparison? Does the 9.25 beat the mak in planetary views?

I have both the C-9.25" and Meade LX-50, 7" Mak. Both scopes display outstanding planetary performance: razor-sharp with excellent contrast. The additional light grasp of the Celestron makes it superior, however. Saturn takes on a 3-D appearance with not only fine belt detail on the disc of the planet, but the occasional glimpse of the (real) Encke division when the seeing is good. The C-9 also shows the discs of Jupiter's Galilean moons easily. Either scope is an exceptional value: great optics that approach the image quality of an APO refractor. Maybe I'm just lucky, but as good as the Meade 7" is, the Celestron has the best image quality of ANY catadioptric I've ever looked through, and that includes Tak Mewlons and Intes-Micro Mak-Newts.

Larry Carlino

I am sure it would. I have never seen a Meade Mak 7 but have seen two C9.25s and they were very good on the planets. The Mak's central obstruction is greater, cooldown is longer, and aperture is less than the C9.25. No design is superior to any other (ie. SCT vs. Mak) in practical terms for viewing the planets, other than central obstruction considerations. It all comes down to optical quality (execution of design), internal baffling, aperture, central obstruction, and cooldown properties. The 9.25 ties the Mak on the first two criteria and beats it on the last three.