User Reviews for LS 6" ACF- 6" LS LightSwitch Telescope - ACF Optics |
Average Rating for
this product 
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Review Date:
12/28/2008
Reviewed By:
Vic Laird
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I have the EXT125 from not long after it came out. I think the ideas behind this new product are great, especially the built-in SD card to take photos. I think Meade should look at doing the 8 and 10 sizes like this, maybe having to go to two support arms for stability. This is great for people who travel to dark sites and like convenience when showing others the sky.
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Review Date:
3/18/2009
Reviewed By:
Keith Hoffman
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Beta test went well!
Greg from Meade brought a beta test ETX-LS to OPT, and we had the privaledge of demo-ing the unit. I was VERY impressed. I was not expecting a full multi media presentaton a-la MySky, but that is what the LS delivers, a full experience, explaining exactly what was going on with the alignment procedure, with video along with the audio. A video out jack as well as a USB out jack is provided, to display the video (not included with scope. The ETX-LS explained that it was getting data from GPS sattelites, and checking for North, level and tilt automatically. After the initial checks, it then automatically slewed to Sirus, and displayed a crosshair view of the star being centered automatically by the Eclips camera. The 2nd and 3rd stars were obstructed by buildings, but the 4th one was not, and the scope aligned successfully.
Our first target was M42 with the included 26mm Plossl, which showed nice contrast in the nubulosity despite the city lights, and the star images indicated that this scope had excellent optics. We switched to the 13mm TELEVUE ETHOS eyepiece, and I noticed that E and F in the trapezium were both visible. We were impressed! There is a full media presentation for many of the objects, and it is very entertaining. This scope would PERFECT for outreach, especially school age children, who can be entertained by the video presentation while waiting for their turn at the eyepiece!
We tried the finder/image feature of the telescope, which displayed a very wide field, so fine detal was not evident, but you could see the main stars in the constellation, and a little red fuzzy spot where M42 was.
We then slewed to M45, and the finder image of that target clearly resolved the stars and nebulosity in a 32 second exposure! Note that it was a very small object in the center of the field, not a high resolution image, but nonetheless impressive considering it all came from a self contained system costing under $1300!
Final target was M35 in Gemini, and the scope showed a contrasty field of pinpoint stars against a black background. This scope is a winner!
The main OTA/Fork assembly weighed 32 pounds, and the tripod was 9 pounds, for those of you wondering about the weight.
I think Meade has a winner with the new ETX-LS!
Keith
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Review Date:
6/9/2009
Reviewed By:
Eddie Kennedy
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First Use, First Light
I picked up my ETX-LS from OPT. It just so happens
that, that night was SDAA's star party at Balboa park. Setup was a breeze, I install a monitor for viewing, told it to do an auto alignment it did as advertised. I looked at the moon, and saturn before the clouds rolled in the views sharp and breath taking, the tracking excellent. Meade did it right, this is a very good buy I look forward to many years of service, it's great to be able to share this with my friends and to do this as public service. I want to thank the staff at OPT for the Best service anywhere thanks.
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Review Date:
6/15/2009
Reviewed By:
Les Varga
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I placed my new ETX-LS 6: ACF in a dark backyard last Saturday night and flipped the switch on and walked away to set up my LX90-12. I went back to the ETX-LS about 10 minutes later and was surprised to see it was waiting for the next command after a totally successful hands-free alignment. I decided to just go the the Tonight's Best tour and, again, was surprised when I was able to see each and every object in the view finder. The ACF optics were beyond my expectations. I am very pleased with this scope...it works as advertised and I commend Meade for the excellent job on this one. The build quality of the telescope was also very good. I would recommend this telescope to anyone.
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Review Date:
7/14/2009
Reviewed By:
Moonie
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Good for pinpoint stars, moon and planets
I had to manually configure my ETX! So what's the point of this when it didn't work out of the box? Sorry, but people should know that their QC is WEAK. My ETX actually had a short circuit in the battery bay. Sad. I'm sticking with Celestron from here on out.
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Review Date:
8/7/2009
Reviewed By:
Lukasz Tarkowski
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It does auto align with GPS , just put it in an open space
It does auto align , just put it in open space
All you need to do is flip the switch.
Remember, to get CCD Camera working you will need MiniSD Memory Card, they have an error on the website
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Review Date:
8/8/2009
Reviewed By:
Koolou
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ETX-LS
Meade needs to have a SD card that is more available than the one needed for photography in this telescope, the card needed is almost impossibe to obtain.
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Review Date:
10/1/2009
Reviewed By:
astrohammer
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Firmware
Firmware needs revision. Don't use current updater it's being updated. This site only seems to print favorable reviews.
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Review Date:
10/4/2009
Reviewed By:
Greg Wilkins
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Dont Get It
Mine works great. If you got one that does not work just send it back. Anything man made has the possibility of defects. It is a great scope especially with my kids.
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Review Date:
1/11/2010
Reviewed By:
Steve
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I bought an LS-6 ACF before Christmas. Right out of the box I got a firmware read error. Meade had me return it and said they would send a new one immediately. 3 weeks later I finally got my new scope today, Jan 11, 2010. This scope will not find GPS satellites. I'm out in the middle of my back yard under clear skies. My LX200-GPS is sitting 10 feet away and it finds GPS immediately. My hand held GPS finds 6 satellites with strong signals in under 30 seconds. My LS-6 has the new ver 1.3 software and it can't find GPS. How sad.
This leads me to the following conclusions:
1. Meade is making a lot of trash. These units are garbage right out of the box.
2. Meade doesn't even bother testing units before shipping them. This is inexcuseable. They don't even turn them on to make sure they work.
3. Meade customer service is terrible. They don't accept Email so I wrote 2 paper letters regarding the first scope and did not even receive a response.
I have been a Meade customer for 20 years and I will never buy another Meade product. The company is manufacuring garbage and not even bothering to test it. Customer service doesn't even seem to care. What a shame.
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Review Date:
5/17/2010
Reviewed By:
Don G
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Awesome
The 1st ETX-LS6 ACF was defected Meade sent me a new one within 30 days,I downloaded the 1.3g version onto the SD card loaded it into the ETX-LS6 ACF it loaded perfect.Set up the telescope in the backyard, switch it on , walk away, 10 min laterI looking in the 26mm eyepiece and the star was right in the middle of the eyepiece.it tracked everything I wanted to look at all night.this is a great telescope.Meade did it right.
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Review Date:
7/19/2010
Reviewed By:
NightOwl
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Nice telescope with buggy software
I live in Maryland and I'm not sure which GPS satellite(s that Mead's LS-6 is looking for, my LS-6 never acquired one. I have the telescope sit near the lake with wide open sky, it still cannot get the signal. Meanwhile, my cellphone picks up the GPS less that 10 seconds. I ended up using 2 Stars alignment option instead.
Try to get firmware update from Autostar Update is a joke. It keeps telling me that the firmware version is up to date even though there's no updated version installed. Why can't Meade just post the file on their website so that it cam be downloaded without the Autostar software.
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