Solarmax II back on sale

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Highbury Mark
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Solarmax II back on sale

Post by Highbury Mark »

I was surprised to see new Coronado Solarmax II scopes back on sale at First Light Optics in the UK this week. The 90mm scopes are similarly priced to the newer Solarmax III equivalents, but the 60mm II versions are much cheaper than the III - presumably reflecting the difference in etalon size - internal v external.


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MalVeauX
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Re: Solarmax II back on sale

Post by MalVeauX »

Orion sent out an email, its limited stock, selling warehouse inventory they probably just finally cateloged after acquisition of Meade. They're not being produced I don't think.

Sadly, they're more expensive than they were before SMIII was released. Before SMIII everyone was dumping SMII series at half price or more. A 60mm double stack SMII series was $1500 brand new as the SMIII was rolling out for release. I can't imagine someone paying over $3k for SM60II double stack now, its inferior to the SMIII.

The only good thing would be if they sold the SM60 and SM90 double stack filters, front mounted, so you could easily double stack an existing scope you already have. But it seems they're only offering single and already double stacked kits.

SMII was mostly poor quality frankly. SMIII so far has also shown to be pretty low quality etalons too. A few gems exist out there with high uniformity and good contrast, but 9/10 examples of SM2 and SM3 results show poor uniformity, banding, etc. I wouldn't bother with any of them and definitely not at these prices.

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Re: Solarmax II back on sale

Post by marktownley »

Interesting to know.


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