Review on Meade Instruments – Infinity 70mm Aperture, Portable Refracting Telescope for Kids & Beginners – Multiple Eyepieces & Accessories Included - Adjustable AZ Manual Mount for Astronomy by Erik Haynes

As an amateur astronomer, I have used a computer controlled 10 inch Dobsonian telescope for 27 years, with which I found all 110 Messier objects. became unwieldy and I still can't see dark deep sky objects in my suburban sky. A serious sight, not a toy. It is mostly made of metal. The tripod is stable if you are careful not to touch the scope while observing. The tripod has some "play". Compared to a Dobsonian mount that goes exactly where you look. When you aim the scope, this alt-azimuth mount wobbles a bit in elevation or vertical direction: you have to move the scope a little beyond where you want to aim, then it comes back. high bar; That reduced the problem. I bought the best mount, Vixen Mobile Porta, and it worked. I was surprised at how sharp the images were with lower magnification lenses. The telescope can split the Mizar binary in Ursa Major and reveal the trapezium of four stars in Orion Nebula M42. Jupiter was disappointing because the 4-inch lens' chromatic aberration created a bluish-orange haze around the planet. I will upgrade to a reflector that doesn't have this problem. The 26mm and 9mm lenses that come with the Meade scope produce images that are almost as sharp and resolving as the expensive Plössl lenses I've used. If you want your images to be as sharp as possible, you should upgrade to better lenses someday. But the lenses that come with it are good. Eye Relief: You have to look into a tiny area above the lens to see the image. You need the best lens for high magnification. Or use the included 2x Barlow magnifier with a 26mm lens. The instruction manual is clear and provides useful advice on how to use the oscilloscope for best results. I was able to set up the scope in 10 minutes. In some reviews, users claim that they cannot see anything through the scope. You need to remove the lens cap and follow the instructions carefully. The advice in the guide is valuable. The knobs that adjust the red dot finder were stiff and I found them almost reaching their limit of rotation. I centered them before aiming the scope to make them easier to rotate. To look through a red dot finder you need to kneel on the ground when the object you want to see is over about 45 degrees above the horizon. That can be hard on your neck, so you might want to wait for the time of year when the object is lower in the sky. With a good sky map, point the red dot finder to where the object appears on the map. This object then appears in the field of view of the 26mm lens. Note that planets visible near the horizon appear washed out due to the thick atmosphere; It is better to wait until the planet rises at least 30 degrees above the horizon. Slow motion controls were tight, but a bit of 3-in-1 oil helped. It is important to lock horizontal (azimuth) rotation before using slow motion azimuth controls; otherwise it doesn't work. I'm happy with this purchase except for the planetary and lunar views which are blurrier than a good reflector with the same aperture. With Meade Infinity 102mm you can see four planets, the moon, star clusters and the brightest galaxies and globular clusters. While I can see fewer objects with this telescope compared to my 10" reflector, the Meade's ease of carrying and mounting is a compromise I'm happy to accept, but I'm switching to an Orion StarBlaster 4.5 reflex sight with one solid Dobsonian basis.