This scope is well built and easy to set up and use. The bearings are smooth and adjustments are a breeze. I had this thing set up and collimated inside of 1 hour.

The reflex sight makes finding objects quick work, even low magnitude sights such as the the more faint Messier objects. However the glass on the sight is slightly darker and so it does cut down on the light seen through it. The lowest setting on the aperture laser is still very bright and every time I used it I felt that it had effected my vision for a bit (I have only one eye to use, if I had two I might target the scope with my non-dominant eye).

The alt-azimuth mount is smooth but made out of cheap particle board. Setting up in the dark I have already gouged the melamine finish around the yoke with the side bearings (the scope is pretty heavy and the side bearings have unforgiving edges). I can see using the yoke as a template and building my own plywood boards to replace them somewhere in the distant future.

Overall, this is an excellent scope for the money. I’ve already had several nights and mornings of excellent viewing and can’t wait to get a look at Jupiter when it finally gets high enough to get a decent shot at it.
Rating: 5 / 5

This isn’t so much a review as it’s a warning to potential buyers of Meade products. This is a $1,000.00+ telescope after shipping, but Meade considers it to be disposable. I called Meade to get a replacement part for it and I was told that they don’t stock any replacement parts and don’t repair this line of telescopes. If the problem is warranty related they said they will replace the whole telescope but other then that they don’t offer any support. They wouldn’t even suggest any recourse.
Rating: 1 / 5

John Dobson’s simple and portable design made large telescopes available to the average amateur astronomer. But the bulky tubes limited the portability of really big sizes.

The breakthrough came with Ivar Hamburg’s truss tube models, which allowed enormous scopes to break down into easily portable sections. But this was always a premium feature, unavailable to observers on a tight budget, unless they built their own.

Now Meade has produced a good quality large truss-tube scope that is competitive in price with the old solid-tube design.

Optics are good. Setup, takedown, and transport are easy. The mirror box is, of course, pretty heavy but manageable for an able-bodied person. I find that, contrary to claims, I have to collimate (align) the optics every time I set up, but I’ve always accepted this as a given with any scope that dismantles.

I have been weirded out by some of Meade’s odd designs like the Schmidt-Newtonian, but I find their truss-tube Dob a winner. It brings great views, easy transport, and affordable price together as they have never been before. Buy it, you’ll like it.

For a more in-depth view on buying telescopes, see my encyclopedic guide on Amazon, “So you’d like to buy a telescope.”
Rating: 5 / 5

As someone with a renewed interest in Astronomy, I wanted a telescope with good light gathering power (better than what I had as a child, both a 50mm refractor and a 6 inch reflector). I also wanted something I could easily take with me in a standard passenger car to a deep sky site.

I was happy to see that these “truss dob” telescopes are now available on the market. As I’m not someone who is naturally good at “do it yourself” projects, I wanted a commercial product that could be assembled easily enough by me, and also portable. This 12″ Meade Lightbridge does this rather nicely.

I received the telescope in 2 boxes. One thing that Meade still needs to work on is designing a mirror cover that actually stays on the mirror during shipping. Mine was off, and rattling around loose in the “light bucket”. Fortunately, it somehow never came in contact with the mirror, or if it did, it didn’t rub against it very hard. I could see no obvious scratches.

Assembly of the telescope was relatively straightforward, although a couple of the diagrams were a little confusing to interpret. After studying them and using some common sense, I was able to figure out the assembly.

Performance of the telescope is very good, even with my moderately light polluted sky (northern Kentucky, about 15 miles from Cincinnati, OH). I have been able to easily pick out individual stars in several Messier catalog globular clusters, and can easily resolve the 4 stars of the trapezium in the Orion nebula. I haven’t been able to “split” some double stars, but that could be just because I was using low power at the time. Most notably, I observed the recent flare-up of Comet Holmes in late October/early November 2007, which was quite impressive in the wide view of the included 27mm eyepiece.

I do have a few minor complaints about the telescope. I don’t know why this is, but the focusing assembly simply will not move out far enough to bring objects into focus with the included 27mm eyepiece. This isn’t a show stopper, as I can loosen the gripping ring, move the eyepiece out a bit, and retighten the ring. Still, I’m surprised that this was the case, given I was using the included eyepiece. I recently acquired a 9mm eyepiece, and it does not have this issue.

Also, the reticle that shipped with the telescope could not be calibrated. I think something was jammed inside, because one of the adjustment screws would have little to no effect when I turned it. I called Meade, and they shipped another one. They didn’t ask for a credit card or anything as collateral, nor did they include instructions on shipping the old one back. I’m guessing that these are a “dime a dozen”. The good news here is the replacement sighting worked correctly, and I am able to find several deep sky objects now without too much trouble.

Another small annoyance: the bottom of the “light bucket” rubs against the tension knob of the base when tilting the telescope about 60 degrees. It isn’t a huge problem, but sometimes getting an object centered in the eyepiece requires more effort.

If you are interested in buying this telescope, I would highly recommend purchasing the laser collimator as well. Like the previous reviewer said, this telescope has more of a tendency to “slip alignment” since it can be disassembled, so having a laser collimator makes things MUCH easier.

So, overall, I would recommend this telescope to anyone who wants to make a “step up” from a previous, smaller rig they own. It isn’t perfect, but still a good quality, solid instrument. With its ample light gathering power and its ease of transport, I think it is a good choice. I’m now looking forward to a moonless night in a dark sky area to really appreciate its potential.

Rating: 4 / 5