Hello. I have a very good friend with an observatory and a meade lx200 12". It is a beauty thats about all i can say. I am also waiting on a 10" GPS. The reason I'm getting the 10" is beacause of the portability. I am going to take this scope out in the field for star parties and what not. Anyways i agree with you going on the 12" as long as you are going to permanately mount it. We have tried to move our 12" with two or three of us and it wasn't the most fun thing i have ever done. We have a setup in the observatory that has a Sbig STV ccd imager. This ccd is a stand alone autogider and imager with its own tv screen so you dont need a laptop or anyhting else. I strongly suggest that you look into the Sbig ccd's before buying a Meade Pixtor. We had a Meade pixtor 416 before the Sbig and we couldn't get any images and the ones we did were quite terrible and it was very frustrating. The Sbig group is probably the best ccd imager group out there, in my opinion much better than Meade. Right now we are also in the process of making or system remote so we can operate in from inside, because like you said it can get VERY cold out there. I hope this will help you in some way. Please get in touch with me so we can talk some more.

• Too late Jeremy - robertko2 - January 1, 2002 - 20:02 UTC