Meade LXD55 SN-6

5.0 An underated scope

Low Price, excellent construction, great wide-field optics and made in USA.

Weight may be a bit much at 12 pounds for true grab-n-go scope.

With all the attention given to apochromatic refractors, many very fine scopes seem to get forgotten. This is an example. I bought the OTA used but actually it was like new when it arrived. This is a U.S. made scope and has a very nice sturdy tube with a quality feel. It has a solid mirror cell with nice large knobs for easy collimation. The mirror is center marked. I have heard complaints that the secondary does not hold position well but I have not found this to be the case at all. I have also heard a lot of complaints about the focuser, which is a rack and pinion aluminum focuser which is probably Chinese made. I replaced the sticky grease and I find the movement to be quite smooth and perfectly satisfactory. I would like to upgrade and may some day. It is no Moonlight but if it was, the scope would have cost me $500-$600 instead of $250. However, I feel the scope is good enough to justify the upgrade.

The finder is 6x30 and actually very well made out of metal and good optical quality. I did replace it with an 8x50 however. I wanted more aperture than the standard 4" refractors, which, no matter how good, really cannot compete with 150mm. That is just the law of optics. The scope weight is only 12 pounds and I have it on an alt-azimuth mount. It is not a travel scope but I was not looking for one. Optically excellent, pin-point stars and flat wide fields at f/5. Just what I wanted for quick set up and wide field viewing. Combined with a 24mm Panoptic or Nagler, a really great scope at an unbelievable price. Who needs a small aperture refractor? Not really made so much for planetary viewing but even does a very nice job on planets just the same.