Posts Made By: Brian Primeau

To the best of my knowledge....Meade hasn't even started shipping them yet. At least not to end users; I don't know if the Big Magazines got any advance units for review or not.

Consensus of dealer web sites and random rumors was that they would start shipping 'By the end of July'. After consulting moon phases, ecliptic times of Vega, and cross-referencing these to many ancient texts, my estimate is that gives them until...ahh....tomorrow, to start the shipments.

If anyone gets one of these in their hands, let the world know! Please?

It will be interesting, when it arrives.

However...I couldn't help but notice that Meade couldn't even give out a picture of the unit, but used a drawing instead....

:S

Never tried one myself, but Ed Ting has reviews of the Meade 102, 152, and 178 mm refractors on his site (www.scopereviews.com).

At least they now have images up...but they could be from a prototype.

What has me just a *teensy* bit concerned is that I have yet to see a photograph of the actual product...the image they're using in adds appears to be artwork! This makes me wonder if it even exists at all yet.

My SN-8 is getting a fair amount of use. My polar scope is out of alignment, and I need to tweak it, so my tracking is off...but the Go To's have been amazing. With a rough polar alignment, I use a one - or two- star alignment, and either in or adjacent to the 26 mm eyepiece every time. Even when slewing across 90 degrees of sky!

If I synchronize on a few objects, the Go To's are even better; spot on in a 13 mm eyepiece within about 45 degrees of sky.

Unfortunately, while working on aligning my polar scope, I stripped the heads off the screws....stupid, stupid, stupid. Should have replaced them with longer ones first, now I have to drill.