Any Advice on buying?

Any advice on buying a Meade 127ED f/9 with LXD650 mount? Good idea, bad idea? Well corrected, poorly corrected, good mount, bad mount? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
This would be a new unused package.

A guy in our club has had more than one
of those over the years, and I have spent a lot of time looking through them. He is definitely a tinkerer, but the scopes were surprisingly good after his efforts. Not Tak quality to be sure, but a good bang for the buck.

Howdy Floyd. I have no experience with the LXD 650 mount, but have had a 127ED for a couple of years. It is a very well-made OTA. I may be in the minority, but I prefer the Meade's "Giant Focuser" over the 2.7" Astro-Physics R&P focuser I have on a D&G. It is a big, fairly long, fairly heavy OTA and demands a stout mount. I use mine on a Losmandy GM-8 and feel the GM-8 is ovetaxed by the OTA. I am considering moving to an Orion Atlas.

Optically these are very good refractors. Mine was purchased new from Anacortes and was one of the last lot of 127EDs made. It has the user-adjustable lens cell - which is important. Optimal performance requires very acurate lens centering and collimation. Mine arrived well collimated and has remained so during my ownership. It provides great views of the moon, Jupiter and Saturn, does a good job on double stars, and gives very satisfying views of brighter DSOs. It is not 100% apochromatic. At higher magnification (200x+) on Jupiter and bright stars like Vega and Sirius it throws up a small amount of spurious blue-violet. For comparison's sake, it has about the same amount of chromatic aberration as my 4" f/14 Antares achromat and less than the D&G 5" f/10 have curently and a Stellarvue 80/9D I used to have.

Chromatism aside, it serves up a wealth of detail on Jupiter (on the order of 8-9 belts with detail in many of them) and Saturn (Cassini always, sometimes Encke gap, sometimes the crepe ring, always 3-5 subtle bands). Were it not such a chore to transport, set-up and take-down, it would be my lunar and planetary workhorse. As it is, I usually opt for a shorter, lighter set-up out of convenience (usually a 100ED or 150mm MCT) for lunar and planetary observations.

Regards,

Jim

Oh, and here's a link to a shoot-out by some Bay Area astronomers in 2003 between the 127ED and some high-zoot Astro-Physics and Takahashi 5" glass. My experience with the scope is consistent with this report. For the money (my OTA was $1600) it is a good deal. Where money is not an object, the fancier OTAs will absolutely perform better. At $4-5k a pop they had better.

The 127ED gives you 85-90% of the performance of the premium 5 inchers at 33% of the price or even less used.

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=506

- Jim