Rating: 
Summary: Excellent amateur telescope
Review: Although I don't have this telescope, I know that catadioptric telescopes are an excellent type of telescope. Well, this particular catadioptric is an excellent amateur telescope. It provides sharp, clear, crisp images of mostly anything you would want to see. With it is included a Meade Autostar Electronic Controller, which enables you to track celestial objects and move the telescope on both of its axises easily and smoothly, thanks to the built-in motors. Also included is the Meade StarFinder computer software, which has an enormous databank of stars, constellations, nebulae, galaxies, etc. Optionally, you can buy the Meade Autostar #497 Controller, which also has an enormous databank of celestial objects and constellations, the legends behind them, and their coordinates. What's more, you can actually "dial up" a celestial object either by its name or by its coordinates (RA and Dec.). All in one controller, which is sold on Amazon.com also. For more information and more telescopes, email me. I have documents about telescopes and astronomy, including some astronomy terms if you aren't familiar.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: Before buying any telescope purchase a copy of Terence Dickinson's Night Watch. There is a great section on how to spot "TRASH SCOPES". There are also good sections on eye pieces.
THE ETC-90EC is definitely not a TRASH Scope!This scope outperforms Many in its price range. It may not present views of the planets as large as a 6" Dobsonian but you will be able to see and Find the planets if you are a novice. If this is a present for a child or a gift a parent and a child can share Get the Autostar controller. It really helps when you are not sure what you are viewing in the sky. But be warned the alignment procedure takes some skill and practice and get a Compass to find North . While a 6" Dobsonian is a good choice for a first scope there are some strong advantages to the ETC-90. First of all its small size. It can be left assembled on a tripod with a minimum of space. A DOB is a fine instrument but unless you have unlimited space it can be aggevating assembling and dissasembling before stargazing. Also its tough to use a camera on a 6" Dobsonian. What you must buy is a Tripod to get your money's worth on this one. The Deluxe Tripod is a good one and dont forget the Autostar controller. The ETC-90 is a good compromise between size use and what you can see. Also you will need an extra eyepiece or two. the WA18 is a good choice. And a 2X Barlow. Remember not everyone lives in perfect dark sky environment or in the desert. If you live in the North Eastern US like I do do not waste money on high power eyepieces. Most of the time Medium power is the maximum you can use anyway.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: Before buying any telescope purchase a copy of Terence Dickinson's Night Watch. There is a great section on how to spot "TRASH SCOPES". There are also good sections on eye pieces.
THE ETC-90EC is definitely not a TRASH Scope! This scope outperforms Many in its price range. It may not present views of the planets as large as a 6" Dobsonian but you will be able to see and Find the planets if you are a novice. If this is a present for a child or a gift a parent and a child can share Get the Autostar controller. It really helps when you are not sure what you are viewing in the sky. But be warned the alignment procedure takes some skill and practice and get a Compass to find North . While a 6" Dobsonian is a good choice for a first scope there are some strong advantages to the ETC-90. First of all its small size. It can be left assembled on a tripod with a minimum of space. A DOB is a fine instrument but unless you have unlimited space it can be aggevating assembling and dissasembling before stargazing. Also its tough to use a camera on a 6" Dobsonian. What you must buy is a Tripod to get your money's worth on this one. The Deluxe Tripod is a good one and dont forget the Autostar controller. The ETC-90 is a good compromise between size use and what you can see. Also you will need an extra eyepiece or two. the WA18 is a good choice. And a 2X Barlow. Remember not everyone lives in perfect dark sky environment or in the desert. If you live in the North Eastern US like I do do not waste money on high power eyepieces. Most of the time Medium power is the maximum you can use anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Scope for Beginner and experienced astronomers
Review: Both beginners and experienced astronomers will love this telescope. It is highly portable, and easy to use. Some advice to beginners: When you buy the scope, also buy the Book - "The Backyard Astronomers Guide" by Terence Dickinson. In fact, if you are unsure about your interest in the hobby, buy the book first. Also, don't buy too many accessories (i.e. additional eyepieces) until you have used the equipment for a while and are familiar with its operation and how you plan to use it.
Rating: 
Summary: There's nothing out there...
Review: Either there's nothing to SEE out there in space or this telescope is ... My brother got it for Christmas (about two weeks ago) and all we have been able to see is the moon and Jupiter. And they are NOTHING like the pictures on the box. With the 26mm eyepiece included, (and I assume that if you're reading my review it means you have researched this product, enough to know that you must purchase many, many other ... accessories just to get this scope working), Jupiter looks about the size of a 12pt. asterisk (*). Buy the $... (Discovery Channel store price) 9.7mm eyepiece, and the $... 2X Barlow, and Jupiter looks about the size of the top of a pencil eraser. Oh WOW. Hmmph! And yes, you can see 3-4 moons around it, tiny tiny white dots. The first five seconds of seeing this are pretty cool. But the novelty wears off quickly. About the moon-- yes, you can see the craters with some detail (only when the moon is not full) with the 9.7mm and a 2X Barlow. But again, never like the pictures on the box. I feel I have been cheated, I thought things would look like the pics on the telescope manual. Larger and more detailed. More colorful. Neat. If you expected to see tracks or footprints on the moon, this is not the telescope for you. If you want to see galaxies or something extraordinary, get a BOOK or watch the Astronomy Channel. Much better images. Apart from those two items, I have been unable to see much else. Up close, stars are larger white dots. I have gotten some views of the people in the building opposite mine. That type of excitement, too, wears off fast and you are left with a ~$1,000 investment gathering dust in the broom closet. As far as performance goes, boohoo. The viewfinder is virtually impossible to align with the eyepiece for more than a couple of hours. And forget it if you've gone out of the city (who can find a distant terrestrial object to focus on a dark lonely night in the countryside?) Once you have it set (satisfactorily, at least), even the tiniest jarr will set everything off and make everyone angry. After 1am the lenses get all dewy and then you can see even less. Even with low magnification the scope vibrates and jitters like crazy. The motor is slow to shift gears, and loud. The batteries don't last more than a couple of days.
SUMMARY- This is a great thing to RENT or BORROW, not own. You see a small circle that might be Jupiter. OK. The moon up closer, OK. It's fantastic for 3 minutes. Then the novelty wears off and you want to see more, and there is nothing more to see. Oh Oh and yes I did shell out more dough and bought the AUTOSTAR. If anyone out there actually got it aligned give me a call. It's FRUSTRATING and time-consuming. The manual is not specific where it should be. Which fork arm above the computer control? I got the electronic eyepiece. Hmmph!
I say try before you buy! And if you already ordered it-- expect NOTHING, so when you see what is to come, you will rejoice. I had sky-high expectations and was deeply disillusioned.
Rating:
Summary: Try before you buy!
Review: Either there's nothing to SEE out there in space or this telescope is trash. My brother got it for christmas (about two weeks ago) and all we have been able to see is the moon and Jupiter. And they are NOTHING like the pictures on the box. With the 26mm eyepiece included, (and I assume that if you're reading my review it means you have researched this product, enough to know that you must purchase many, many other expensive accessories just to get this scope working), Jupiter looks about the size of a 12pt. asterisk (*). Buy the $85 9.7mm eyepiece, and the $85 2X Barlow, and Jupiter looks a little larger: about the size of the top of a pencil eraser. Oh WOW. And yes, you can see 3-4 moons around it, tiny tiny white dots. The first five seconds of seeing this are pretty cool. But the novelty wears off quickly. About the moon-- yes, you can see the craters with some detail (only when the moon is not full) with the 9.7mm and a 2X Barlow. But again, never like the pictures on the box. I feel I have been cheated, I thought things would look like the pics on the telescope manual. If you expected to see tracks or footprints on the moon, this is not the telescope for you. If you want to see galaxies or something extraordinary, get a BOOK or watch TV science shows. Much better images. Apart from those two items, I have been unable to see much else. Up close, stars are larger white dots. I have gotten some views of the people in the building opposite mine. That type of excitement, too, wears off fast and you are left with a ~$1,000 investment gathering dust in the broom closet. As far as performance goes, boohoo. The viewfinder is virtually impossible to align with the eyepiece for more than a couple of hours. And forget it if you've gone out of the city (who can find a distant terrestial object to focus on a dark lonely night in the countryside?) Once you have it set (satisfactorily, at least), even the tiniest jarr will set everything off and make everyone angry. After 1am the lenses get all dewy and then you can see even less. (I guess you could buy the dew shield, yet another necessary accessory, but I'm not opening my wallet again for Meade.) Even with low magnification the scope vibrates and jitters like crazy. The motor is slow to shift gears, and loud. The batteries don't last more than a couple of days.
SUMMARY- This is a great thing to RENT or BORROW, not own. You see a small circle that might be Jupiter. OK. The moon up closer, OK. It's fantastic for 3 minutes. Then the novelty wears off and you want to see more, and there is nothing more to see. Oh Oh and yes I did shell out more dough and bought the AUTOSTAR. If anyone out there actually got it aligned give me a call. It's FRUSTRATING and time-consuming. The manual is not specific where it should be. I got the electronic eyepiece. Hmmph!
I say try before you buy! And if you already ordered it-- expect NOTHING, so when you see what is to come, you will rejoice. I had sky high expectations and was deeply disilusioned.
Rating: 
Summary: A good **portable** scope: Read This
Review: I am the president of a large (300 members) astronomy club in Columbus, Ohio and have looked through thousands of telescopes in my life- including, perhaps, 20 Meade ETX-90s. I find the views of the planets and the moon through the ETX-90 to be consistently good- though not overwhelming. Due to the limited light grasp of this scope, high power views of deep-sky objects (galaxies, star clusters, nebulae) are relatively anemic and uninspiring. However, the scope gives very nice "rich field" (low power) views of the Milky Way and brighter comets. To explain: More than any other factor, it is the aperture of a telescope that matters. In general, aperture dictates portability, cost, resolution (sharpness) and, most importantly, light gathering ability. A telescope is like a bucket for gathering light; the larger the bucket, the more light it gathers. With its 3 and a half inches (90 millimeters) of aperture, the ETX-90 is not a very large bucket. Why is this important? Other than the planets, the moon, and the brightest stars, astronomical objects tend to be very faint. Views through a scope of any size will look nothing like astro-photos. Nebulas, star clusters, and galaxies will, instead, appear to the eye as delicate, cottony, wisps of light. To make these delicate wisps of light more perceptible, most experienced amateur astronomer use scopes with 8 inches of aperture or more. Such a scope will gather 5 times more light than the Meade-ETX 90. What difference does this make? A view of the spectacular M13 globular cluster through an 8 inch scope will reveal dozens of its brightest stars swarming about its "nebulous" center like a swarm of bees. Through the 90 mm of the ETX, one might, under the darkest skies and with a bit of practice, just barely be able to make out that the object is made has stars in it, and is not, in fact, just a fuzzy "nebula". For this reason, I generally steer first time scope buyers to an inexpensive, but larger aperture, "Dobsonian". Those looking for something more portable I steer toward a nice pair of binoculars. On the other hand, this scope is exceptionally portable and convenient to use. It does fit a niche. It is the perfect scope for travel or those quick "gotta' look" moments. It's small size means that it cools off quickly, and can be used almost immediately. With its fixed "Maksutov" design, it never needs collimation (mirror adjustment). I've found the computerized GOTO system relatively easy to use, fairly precise, and programmed with more and fainter objects than one can reasonably expect to see with its small aperture. (Recommendation: learn the names of the brightest 20 or so stars in the sky. You will need them as guide stars to align the scope with.) After a few minutes of setup by an experienced user, sought out objects fall within the low power field of view 90 percent of the time. Finally, some skilled star watchers find delight in "bagging" faint, difficult objects with minimal aperture. It's a source of pride for them to be able to say: "I saw Pluto (as an amost imperceptibly faint dot) in my ETX-90!" NOTE: I have stood next to many first time users of the Meade-ETX and watched them fumble in the dark for hours with the system of computerized menus in the GOTO system that comes with this scope. Learn to use it in the daylight or during the full moon and not while you're cutting into your observing time. In addition, I have one experienced friend whose Meade-ETX 90 simply refused to function properly, but I believe this to be an exception. The 24 millimeter finder is useless for finding anything but guide stars and the planets. It is difficult to align, and is so small that very little can be seen through it. I would recommend getting a dew shield in addition to this scope. The Bottom Line: If your only experience with a telescope is looking through a rickety "department store" refractor, you're liable to be very impressed with this view through a "real scope". If you like to look at the moon, planets, and to surf the star fields of the Milky-way, you will find this scope convenient and enjoyable. However, if you expect glorious views of galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters, either buy a larger aperture scope, or join an astronomy club that owns one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great portable telescope with a few problems
Review: I bought this telescope for viewing in Canada when I travel, but I find myself using it much more frequently. Although the views are not as good as my 8 inch Celestron (if they were Celestron would have a problem), it is just so convenient to take this telescope to any location that I use it more than the larger telescope. The finder scope is useless (get a right angle finder) and Meade should be ashamed of themselves for including the straight finder with this scope. Focusing is a problem when looking overhead, but I remedied this by attaching a spring to the focusing post (the spring is about 2 1/2 inches long with an internal diameter equal to the focusing shaft-goes right on and works well). For anyone who has spent hours using coordinates to locate objects, the autostar is unbelievable-set it up and you can spend all night looking at objects instead of looking for objects (I did this in Canada and saw more objects in one night than in one month in eastern Massachusetts). Meade does have some quality control problems:
1.I had to return the original straight finder-would not
focus properly.
2.The 26 mm eyepiece had a scratch inside and had to be
returned.
(Meade replaced both quickly)
3.The wires inside that drive the motors were improperly
secured and were broken when they became entangled in the
drive gears. (I took it apart, resoldered the 4
wires and properly secured them)
After building a camera mount for my Olympus 3030 I have taken some great digital photos (both celestial and terrestrial) with the telescope.
In summary:
A great scope that I would purchase again. You will need a tripod as well as a right angle finder. Purchase the autostar- it is worth every penny (dollar?). And to Meade - pay attention to detail.
Rating:
Summary: I'm having fun with this new toy!
Review: I don't know much about astronomy or telescopes, but this thing is a blast! I haven't experienced any of the smallish problems listed below, but I did buy it with caution. Overall, it seems to be a quality piece of equipment. However, there does seem to be many parts that could break or cause problems. I guess that comes with the territory. In the short time I've owned this tool/toy I have learned more about astronomy than I ever thought I would have. I guess that speaks well for the investment.
Rating:
Summary: The ETX 90 EC is best little telescope for the Price!
Review: I got it, I like it, and it works fine. If you want a fine little telescope this is the one....
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