This is a beautiful looking telescope, with its sleek white optical tube and gray mount. It is sturdy, lightweight and compact just what you need when moving the telescope from place to place.

The Achromatic are extremely good performers in areas with light pollution and glare, making this a great telescope for the city. The Meade telescope’s strong points are its sharp, crisp, views and contrast from its multi coated lenses.

I have spent many nights viewing with this telescope and have been pleasantly surprised with its performance.

I have viewed objects I viewed M8, M16, M20, M81, M82, M101, and the double star M40 and Globular clusters all were great viewing. M13 in particular was stunning. I viewed the Horsehead and the Orion Nebula and all showed some character and detail. I could clearly see the two arms of the Spiral Galaxy.

Deep sky viewing is my first love and I am very pleased to report that the telescope performed very well and of course with the assistance of Meade’s Autostar I found I was able to view more deep sky objects in one night than is normally possible without the help of a computer.

You can buy top astronomy software which is compatible with meade Autostar called Starry Night. There are 3 versions “Starry Night Backyard” “Starry Night Pro” and Starry Night Deep Space” all are top rated software packages that will enhance your viewing of the night sky by giving you all the information you need on each object.

I turned it on the planets, first up was my favorite gas giant, Jupiter. The three cloud bands were clearly visible along with five of Jupiter’s moons, I tapped on the Autostar keypad and Saturn appeared.

She looked as beautiful as ever, with this Meade telescope’s high contrast and crisp outlines, the rings and shadows were stunning. These Achromat Meade telescopes truly excel with many deep sky objects and planetary viewing.

You are going to get a lot of telescope for the price. If you’re on a budget, take a serious look at this very attractive telescope. I have decided to add this telescope to my collection after spending time with it.

The Go-To with it’s 30 thousand plus object database is a real bonus. If you’re like me, you will want to view objects and not spend valuable time trying to find them.

Until Autostar was invented for the meade telescopes it was only the professional astronomers who had this type of technology.

But, while using the Autostar I found a problem. When I requested some objects from the Autostar database, the object was not there when I looked through the eyepiece. At first I thought there was a problem with the Autostar.

Then I realized that it was not the Autostar exactly. There are objects programmed into Autostar data base which are simply out of this meade telescope’s reach. This leaves me to wonder how many other meade telescopes with Autostar have this problem.

So if you have problems such as not seeing an object through your telescope after you have requested it from Autostar, it may mean that it is out of your telescopes range and the database has not been cleared properly for that particular telescope.

 Meade Telescopes Recommendation

The bonus here is its excellent deep sky viewing. The achromatic meade telescopes are excellent if you are stuck in an area with light pollution.

These meade telescopes can stand alongside many of the more expensive meade telescopes but at a fraction of the price.