If you’re looking for telescope with large aperture here it is. It’s big, it’s fat, and it’s a lot of fun. Don’t let the picture of this telescope fool you, when you have this baby pointing up at the heavens, take a ladder you’re going to need it!!

I would love to own one of these Meade telescopes, but alas it is simply too big and heavy, and at around a 175 lbs it’s too much for me to handle and even if I could I would need a truck. It’s simple mounting design keeps the price down and you can get more aperture per dollar of cost.

Ok, so it’s big but what will you see when you start viewing!! Well I can tell you now you won’t be disappointed. This is when you start to see the most distant of objects at a high level of image quality.

I have viewed the Trifid Nebula-NGC 6514, the Ring Nebula-NGC 6720, M51, M81, M82, and M42, they all had good definition to them and were very sharp. The Rings of Saturn had a lot of structure, you could clearly see several separate rings from the inner to the outer rings (Cassini Division).

Jupiter’s cloud bands and the great red spot had good clarity and color. Mars was a big orange ball as a dust storm had enveloped the entire planet.

You will see objects that will make you gasp, having a telescope with such large aperture, the amount of objects you will be able to view is staggering and will keep you busy for years.

Meade has made some improvements to their Dobsonian meade telescopes over the past two years. They have improved the mirror assembly, it is now lower in the tube so cool down time is much quicker and they have improved the support boards which helps make the base much more solid.

There were some problems which seem to be common with these Meade telescopes. The owner of this Dob was having problems with the side bearings not moving smoothly, the telescope rotated on the bolts a little way before the plastic hubs would begin to move, this may not seem much but as this is such a large telescope it can cause problems.

The owner of the Dob found a review on meade telescopes on the net written by T Spear at Cloudy Nights, the review spoke about the same problem he was having and how to fix it.

The review told him he could correct the problem by putting two screws through each “side bearing” parallel to the tube. He drilled holes in the side bearings and into the tube and then used drywall anchors which were lightly tapped into the tube.

He also replaced the “side bearing nylon pads” with two felt pads then greased it with white lithium. I am pleased to say this worked well and the problem was fixed, thanks to T Spear’s review.

I must point out to you that some of the reviews you may have read about the Dobsonian Meade telescopes, state that there are a lot of problems with them.

Many of these reviews are out of date, and have been written before Meade made the improvements, so please be aware of this when reading other reviews. The Dobsonian I am reviewing here was purchased in Jan 2002.

 Meade Telescopes Recommendation

These are tremendous Meade telescopes, and you are going to love viewing with the Dobsonian.
Just remember this is a very large telescope and you will need someone to help you set up and dismantle this telescope and you will need the proper transport if you want to be able to go anywhere with it.