The Meade 12" LX200 Telescope is the Schmidt Cassegrain design and has a unique optical system in that it has two mirrors, a primary and secondary yielding a fully illuminated field - of - view significantly wider than is possible with a standard - size primary mirror. Field stops machined into the inside diameter surface of the primary mirror baffle tube significantly increase lunar, planetary, and deep space image contrast. This extremely versitile high resolution telescope has push - button controls, automatic tracking of celestial objects, a 30,000 object database, and the facility to download software. We can study the rings of Saturn from a distance of 800 million miles, look into the craters of the moon, or focus beyond the solar system and observe majestic nebulae, ancient star clusters, remote galaxies, and even stars recently discovered to have planets orbiting about them.
The Meade LX200 is fully capable of growing with my interest and ideal for both the casual observer and serious astronomer. 

Mounted on top of the Meade is a Stellarview 102 ED Refractor,it has a 0.8 reducer / flatner making it a fast focal ratio of f 5.6...This scope has a Canon 40D DSLR camera attatched to the eyepiece, and is used for deep sky Astrophotography...The Meade has a modified mono Philips Toucam. This scope with the Toucam attatched to a computer is used for locating a guide star in the area of the target image, once the target is centered on the Laptop, the guide star is locked on and guiding begins. This allows for long exposure Deep Sky imaging...Located under the Meade Telescope is a set of counter balance weights, to offset the Stellarview Telescope and the DSLR camera.

The Meade 12" LX200 Telescope is mounted on an Equatorial Wedge. ( See Photos ).The Meade 12 inch Equatorial Wedge will eliminate field-rotation effects when you're using your 10,12 and 14" LX200 and LX400 telescope for astrophotography.

You can do astrophotography with the LX200 & LX400 scopes in the standard altazimuth mode, but with longer exposure times, an effect called field rotation becomes evident. Stars at the edge of the field will appear as small concentric arcs or streaks on the film, rather than as star points. This effect, which does not relate to the accuracy of the telescope's computer or internal alignment, occurs on all altazimuth-mounted telescopes. It's simply a side effect of the altazimuth-type mount itself.

Preventing Field Rotation

To prevent field rotation, your 10,12 and 14" LX200 and LX400 can be polar-aligned with the wedge. The wedge allows you to align the telescope's axis of rotation with the Earth's rotational axis. And this eliminates the effects of field rotation and gets the star streaks out.