Meade Instruments Day and Night Telescope-227003 EclipseView 76mm Reflecting Telescope with Removable Filter

I got this telescope after breaking my last one. I usually take entry level telescopes out to rural or wilderness areas and view it from there since I live in a city with pretty severe light pollution, so my first use with this one was out in the mountains. Even then light pollution is around level 6-7. 5 if I’m lucky.First of all for a scope at this price range you really shouldn’t expect a whole lot, since this really is more of a beginners/intro level scope price range. Assembly was decent, but i’d recommend practicing assembling it in the day time prior to trying to assemble it at night first, since I got confused with where all the parts were at. The instruction manual I feel like could use more pictures on assembly instead of just text, it assumes you know more than I think a beginner level person would know. But it came together well enough. I had more accessories than I expected for the telescope which was nice to switch between eye pieces.The height of the tripod is a bit short. I feel like it’s really meant for younger users, or maybe someone with a chair, but once I got the hang of it it did the job and I was able to find targets well enough. I used it on the night of the “thunder moon” and had a lot of fun with it. I even got to witness the ISS pass by in front of it which I was impressed it was able to resolve the image well enough which gives credit to the optics of the telescope, especially for less than $150.Overall this really is designed well. I’d recommend it purely for adolescent/prepubescent educational purposes, something you want to show your teenage kid with or as a very casual/beginner level scope. For something more robust or better quality Meade has plenty of other higher end equipment. If you plan to use this for the eclipse coming up in August I would recommend making sure that the screw is secure before observing. The Meade Starnavigator has a better fastener than these ones do, but again at this price point I guess they probably couldn’t work out a better solution. But it does the job and it does the job decently. Nothing spectacular, but nothing blatantly wrong either.

I am a longtime (30 years ,5 telescopes) amateur astronomer, who is now teaching an astronomy class; I am very familiar with the many disasters of first-time telescope purchases, and have advised many beginners to try the FirstScope design (you can see versions of it by Celestron, Orion, Meade, and several others) - a small (3 inch) dobsonian reflector (that's a Newtonian/ side view), with a super smooth friction mount.The critical keys are (1) a smooth, stable mount to move the telescope under finger pressure, with no wobble; (2) LOW POWER (magnification is waay over-rated for beginners) - wide fields make it super easy to find things, bright views, and early success; (3) a red-dot finder to point the darn thing! Other nice-to-haves are two eyepieces, and perhaps a nice shorty Barlow lens (a doubler), to turn two eyepieces into four. Oh, and a nice price point. Oh, and minimal setup so beginners don't have to mess around to get started.I felt I should try one of these out to make my recommendations legit, so I began to investigate, and came across this Meade EclipseView 82mm FirstScope. First off, the value for this package is OFF THE CHARTS - for $55 bucks this includes two eyepieces, a Barlow, a red-dot finder, PLUS an ISO-approved Solar Filter AND a Sun-Finder (so you don't have to look at the sun with your eye!) I have paid more for a single eyepiece! Incredible.Test: This Meade EclipseView ROCKS. It was COLLIMATED (a word which means the optics are all carefully lined up for you) "out-of-the-box" - I was literally on the front porch viewing the sun within 10 minutes of receiving the shipment! Perfect view, everything just worked. The two eyepieces (Huygens 26mm and 9mm) sound humble, but surprisingly, they are a perfect match for this system. Light, reasonable eye relief (that's how far your eye needs to be from the eyepiece itself, too short and it's uncomfortable) and they show all the detail available in this system. I tested with several Plossl's and Kellner, and frankly, they didn't make the images much better.Speaking of the images, if you are an experienced observer, they are "soft". A simple 82mm spherical mirror, with a very fast focal length (F/3.7) Yet the system easily hung together up to 65x (that's the 9mm eyepiece plus the Barlow); with my other accessories, I got reasonable views up to about 80x, which is astonishing for a system like this. A+. Also, this mirror is slightly larger than other FirstScope models (82mm vs 76mm) - interestingly, this translates to about 15% more light gathering. And unlike small refractors, there is relatively little image coloration here.The best and yet the most complicated part of the system is the red-dot finder. It's super valuable, and worth the purchase price alone, but in my package, it was the only piece that needed calibration, and it took me (a very experienced guy) about 20 minutes to put the red dot on the center of field. Still, just that it was included is incredible, almost as incredible as a certified solar filter! With all this included capability, this thing is literally a Swiss Army knife - you can look at just about anything. And it only weighs 4lbs (!) so anyone can carry it just about anywhere.Mirror: Solid B (better than expected, mine was reasonably collimated)Eyepieces, Barlow: solid B (better than expected)Focuser: C (plastic, OK, just fine here)Stand: A+, rock steady, absolute best of the Dobsonian designRed-dot Finder: A, works great, required setup, gotta have it!Solar filter, Solar finder: A++, unbelievable that it's included.Charm: A - it's just really cute. It even makes me look smart sitting on my office desk.Portability: A+Build quality: B+, super solid body, stand; focuser, Barlow plastic, but everything works, fits right.Value: A++, off the charts.RUN, do not walk, and get one of these today! If you were ever interested in trying astronomy as a hobby, now is the Golden Age - and this Meade is well made, easy to set up and use, plus an incomparable value.*** Quick Update 5/20/20 *** Tonight the EclipseView 82mm easily grabbed M44, the Beehive Cluster in Cancer, and it looked pretty darn good doing so; the Red Dot Finder and wide field view easily got us close, 26mm eyepiece nailed down the focus, and 26mm + Barlow pulled lots of detail out of it. The Beehive filled the view from edge to edge, with at least 40 stars easily countable. There are 104 Messier objects, most within reach of this telescope! That's a year's worth of real astronomy baked into this package. High recommendation further confirmed.

Informacion del producto incorrecta. No viene con el filtro solar ni con la mira solar