First Impressions

Saying that the Meade #395 is my first scope doesn't mean that I'm a newcomer to optic systems. I started on photography when I was 14 with a second hand Zeiss Ikon Contaflex camera that my father gave me as a gift. Since then, I've owned several cameras from Nikon to Leica to Zenza Bronica's and all of them have a superior quality construction and finish several magnitude times than my telescope. By far. I imagine that if you try to achieve a similar grade of mechanical perfection in a telescope, you must try the Zeiss way of life. Who said that best things on life are free? :-)

 

 

Several people from the Internet have told me that Meade #395 quality isn't uniform. Since it is manufactured in Taiwan, it lacks control quality inspect tests, so you can end up with a jewel or with a lemon. It's pretty soon to determine what type of "scope" I got, but attaching by hand a Nikon F-810S camera to the scope I see a better quality image than I usually get with my Vivitar 500mm f/8 reflex lens.

After identifying the several parts of the scope, and with the help of the manual, I started to assembly the scope. The manual is well written but since this scope is aimed towards the newcomer to astronomy, I think it would be nice to include a section on astronomy concepts, basic constellation maps and the like.

Well, after 15 minutes or so, the scope was completely assembled in my living-room, so I started to familiarize with it: A polar axis, a declination axis, a latitude axis and an azimuth axis; that's an equatorial mount, you know, but the first time you really see it in your hands seems a bit complex. Anyway, one hour later I was pretty familiar with the Meade #395 equatorial mount.

The following step was to align the 6x30mm finderscope with the telescope, but then I noticed that it was impossible to focus the finderscope on far targets. I removed the frontal element and saw a small plastic defect that I removed with a knife. Then I finally was able to focus to infinite.

 

Specifications as published by Meade:

The telescope is supplied complete with 90mm (3.5") multi-coated objective lens and aluminum optical tube assembly (D = 90mm, F = 1000mm, f/11); rack-and-pinion focuser (1.25"); equatorial mounting with dual worm-gear slow-motion controls; setting circles; latitude control with scale; full-length, variable-height aluminum tripod with accessory shelf; 6 x 30mm viewfinder; diagonal mirror; MA 25mm (40X) eyepiece (1.25"); instructions.

Return to main Meade #395 Web Page, by Luis Argüelles.