Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsOne year of ownership...here's my issues
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2021
AFTER ONE YEAR OF USE...
Ok...so the alignment issues are beyond explanation, and are really frustrating. I've used this close to 50 times during 2021, and at no point has it been easy to align. NOT ONE TIME. I've tried everything but it's internal first-star alignment should be embarrassing to Meade. Level, check. Pointed due north, check. Time and date correct, check. First star it picks, regardless of the season is way far off from where it positions the scope during slew...by close to 25 degrees. I manually slew it to center the star, and the second star is closer but still way off. Once you get the second star aligned, it functions as expected and slews to whatever you're hoping to see. Alignment is unacceptably frustrating, but manageable. If you don't know your stars you won't be able to do it, period.
Optics seem solid, and you can see some interesting things. However, the focal length of this scope will dramatically limit what you should attempt to view. Galaxies? Nope, don't hold out hope to see any. Look at Andromeda and you'll see a slight smudge around a hazy bright center. Nebula? Great Orion only through the scope from my experience. What you can spend time looking at are star clusters and solar system objects like Mars/Jupiter/Saturn or the moon. You can very easily pick up the moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn. The moon is fun to view through this scope as well. But don't even think about deep sky objects...it cannot gather enough light to show you those.
I purchased an adapter for my DSLR camera and have been able to take up to 30 second exposures without star trails of a lot of objects. My skies are Bortle Class 7, so not ideal, but I have successfully imaged a few deep sky objects through this scope. I'd love to take this scope to a dark sky site and see what it can do, but we don't have many nearby and lugging this thing around to simply get sub-optimal deep sky photos doesn't sound appealing to me. I use different equipment for those.
Really good for: Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Star Clusters (really impressed me here), Orion Nebula
Kind of ok for: Andromeda, Dumbbell Nebula, Running Man Nebula
Bad for: Deep sky objects like galaxies, faint nebula, diffuse nebula
I have been able to image some hard to get things with this, like the Little Dumbbell Nebula, Pacman Nebula, Bubble Nebula. While they can be imaged, it's definitely not worth the effort from my skies, and most importantly require several (close to an hour) stacked 30 second exposure photos to make out even the remotest of details.
To summarize, it's solid for doing what it can do, and bad if used for something it's not designed for (deep sky). If you can get past the alignment issues/challenges, it's a fun scope to pull out for friends and family.
ORIGINAL REVIEW...
We’ve been blown away at what you can see with this telescope. The Orion Nebula is crystal clear and easy to capture. Once aligned, 20 second exposures are as far as you can push before you get tracing. The picture is a single 20 second exposure taken with an old camera. Lunar details are great, and you can see the rings of Saturn quite easily at low magnification.
My only issue to date is initial alignment. It struggles to find Sirius...by a LOT...every time...but a lot of adjusting/slewing to bring it into the eyepiece is possible. And then onto the next alignment star, and off again by quite a bit, but closer than Sirius. Another manual slewing to center, and it’s good from that point forward. I think it might be a user issue at this point, but it’s a relative inconvenience when compared to the overall quality of the telescope and fun we’ve had viewing celestial wonders with such ease.
