Meade 60AZ-A2

4.0 My First Telescope

Good optics; Eyepieces, Barlow and Diagonal come with the scope

Only 60mm of aperture; Slightly shaky mount.

Well, after using this telescope for about 1.5 years, I think I've just about mastered it. I bought the scope for something to get me started in astronomy. I didn't know of many other brands and Meade was the only brand Wal-Mart carried. Here's my review:

1. The Optics: The optics are great(9.5/10 for their size). I have gotten excellent views of M42, Jupiter, Saturn, M44, M8, M31, Mars, Venus (the phases), Moon and many other objects. It isn't for deep sky fanatics, but it does fine for the brighter DS objects.

2. The Mount: Mounted on a basic Alt-azimuth mount, this the 2nd most important thing on a telescope. I find this scope mount to be OK (5.1/10). The telescope has a great azimuth mount (left-right) but lacks in altitude mounting. It has altitude control, but it tends to fall down. I found the cause to be the two screws that hold it in place. I put two medium size washers on one side and it seems to have fixed that problem - it doesn't fall as much now. However, the scope's mount does tend to go up when you move it and down when you let it go. It takes some getting used to, but it is a minor inconvenience to aim it about 1.5 fields higher than the object. Otherwise, it is a stable tripod.

3.The Finder: This scope has a crappy 5x24 finder. It finds stuff, but doesn't see much more than the naked eye. But it works for bright objects.

4.The Other Stuff: It is an EXTREMELY easy beginners scope to set up, and comes with: a DVD that shows you all the required set-up steps, Star chart program on the same CD (needs a DVD-ROM), Meade MA 25mm and 9mm eyepieces, a 2x barlow, a mediocre instruction manual, all screws and hardware (except those washers you'll want for the mount), and a 90 degree diagonal. You might want to replace the screws on the diagonal with new ones of the EXACT SAME SIZE. Make sure they are flat on the bottom.

5.Conclusion: I would say that all-in-all, this is a nice beginner's scope. It gets a grand score of 7.9/10 in my mind.