Defective Meade Returned

OK. I promised once I got the 4" Meade APO refractor back I'd report. You may go to the Defective Meade thread to get the background of this situation if you are not familiar. I spoke to Meade on several occasions and they told me that the scope could not be totally corrected because of a defect in the lens but they could improve it significally. The views are much better. Saturn did not show the coma as it had before. Venus had some coma to one side but not much. The moon looked great but the stars still did not have the nice concentric rings at high power but were bunched to one side. Inside and outside focus showed nice concentric rings. I don't get it!! Why would an in focus show the rings to one side while the out of focus star showed nice concentric rings? The people at Meade were nice and tried to be helpful. I shipped the scope on March 18 but did not get it back until May 19. Packaging was fair but it arrived OK. Maybe I am just expecting too much from this scope. This scope optically is not even in the same universe as my 8" Portaball. Interestingly I sent the scope without its dew shield but it returned with one attached.

John:

I hope you are able to enjoy this scope. There is no such thing as a perfect scope, some are just better than others...

>>>Maybe I am just expecting too much from this scope. This scope optically is not even in the same universe as my 8" Portaball.
----

Personally I am not surprised. The Portaball likely has a CZ mirror or some other premium quality optic. If my memory serves me correctly, the Meade 102ED's were around $1300 new, a lot of money but less than half the price of a TV-102 which at the time was the probably the competition.

Jon

As I said before, the spacer between the lenses is not precision enough. The elements need to be spaced equally to within 50 millionth of an inch, something that requires careful hand work by someone knowledgeable in optics. Otherwise you will get coma (bunching on one side).

Rolando

There is no reason at all that Meade cant send you back a colliamated scope!


Back in 1999 i had a nitemare with a Meade 7" ED LX750, it went back to Meade three times and was never collimated worth a darn. I ended up getting my money back, come to find out it was the cell, it would not hold collimation.

Chas