HELP!!!!!Any one own a Meade lxd55 SN-8 telescope

Any one of you guys own a Meade lxd55 SN-8 telescope. I bought one two months ago, after struggling with meade’s customer service to finish it on time now I am worried about the quality. I haven’t received it yet, it will arrive to Miami tomorrow. But I won’t get the chance to try it until next month because I live outside the us, and I will traveling to Miami next month. Any good experiences, bad experiences with the telescope?, can anyone tell me please...

Thanks and clear skies

Ricardo R. Amador

After struggling with my LXD55 / AR-5 for several months now and reading many similiar experiences on other boards, my comments would be:

1. I hope you get one of the better units ... but your chances are probably 50/50.

2. The FIRST thing you should do is go to the LXD55Telescopes group on Yahoo and download the Tips & Tricks guide. It will help you while you perform the many upgrades needed on the mount and OTA for best performance.

3. Before you take it back home, assemble and test here in the US. It will be much easier to send back a lemon while you're here. Maybe you can have the dealer you purchased this from do it before your arrival. You might have to pay them, but if you get one with serious problems, it might save you a plane ticket.

Good luck!

Hi Ricardo -

I had one and it was a serious lemon. I had the mount replaced a few times from Meade, as well as several other parts.

Even after Meade sent me all the parts, it never did GO-TO very accurately. The mount was not very smooth, either, and shook horribly in the slightest breeze. Also, many of the screws and metal parts are made out of some sort of cheap casting that breaks very easily. Basically, to get these to work, you will need to work on it making several improvements.

The optics were fine, but the focuser was horrible.

There have been a lot of quality control problems with this line of scopes, so if you order one you should be prepared to send the mount back to Meade at least once.

Personally, I do not recommend these scopes until Meade gets the problems with them corrected.

-Jake