Meade bought by Jinghua Optical

[Merlin66]

One major concern I have in all this -is the future of Coronado and their solar telescopes....

The demands on the opticals are very high and the market very small....unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if the whole Solar stuff was dumped.

[pete_l]

I think this is a good development all round.

Not only will Meade have the money to do proper development, instead of rushing stuff out that doesn't work or hasn't been properly tested, but it means there will be more money, generally, in the world of astronomy suppliers.

That will have an effect on the astronomy magazines, most of all. They live by advertising and with Meade becoming a "player" once again and taking more advertising, the mags will get a larger income (and maybe get some outstanding invoices paid? ) so can expand and diversify their output.

[Chris Rowland]

The CN people don't seem to be allowed to talk about this, every thread about it has been locked.

I hope that the takeover will mean that Meade will finish products before releasing them, and that their marketing will have more technical information and less of telling us how we will feel using their products.

Chris

[pete_l]

... their marketing will have more technical information and less of telling us how we will feel using their products.

That's an interesting observation. I must say, I never pay any attention to advertisements - save for a quick scan to see if there is any techy content. That "aspirational" approach is what you see in car adverts, to mask the fact that there is very little real difference between all the various models.

[jensbilgrav]

I was planning on buying some pretty big Meade telescopes (a MaxMount 20" and three 14" LX850-ACF) for my observatory in Sardinia - does this mean you would advise against it?

What alternatives would you suggest?

Thanks,

Jens

[ringz]

I will never forgive Meade for suing Celestron over Level North.

And I still get a laugh over them declaring they were selling R.C. telescopes and being sued in return because they weren't.

Martyn.

[Chris Rowland]

I don't want to get into the rights or wrongs of that but I wonder if the resources devoted to the patent war was the root cause for first Celestron to be taken over by Synta and now Meade by Jinguha.

It must have cost a huge amount in legal fees for both companies. I don't think that Meade got anything out of it because Celestron were developing their AllStar alignment method.

Chris

[Steve]

So Meade, Celestron and Skywatcher are all in the hands of the Chinese. Interesting times indeed.

[Davey-T]

I was planning on buying some pretty big Meade telescopes (a MaxMount 20" and three 14" LX850-ACF) for my observatory in Sardinia - does this mean you would advise against it?

What alternatives would you suggest?

Thanks,

Jens

I suggest you repost in the equipment / mounts forum and get serious advice, apart from rubbish customer service they expect you to ship the whole thing back to them if it goes wrong,

imagine the courier charge :eek:

Dave

[ollypenrice]

I was planning on buying some pretty big Meade telescopes (a MaxMount 20" and three 14" LX850-ACF) for my observatory in Sardinia - does this mean you would advise against it?

What alternatives would you suggest?

Thanks,

Jens

Advise against it? You bet I would! Buying rubbish like this would be madness. Might as well just say it since it is obviously true. Look at what the well funded imagers are using. It certainly isn't Meade!

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Jens, to be a bit more positive I would do an awful lot of homework on the choice of scope. Amateur imagers don't necessarily want utterly enormous focal lengths, they want speed - which means fast F ratios.

They also want mounts that work, that track very accurately. The mounts to consider are Mesu (check out the Mesu Number One flipless design), 10 Micron, Paramount, Astro Physics. You might also consider ASA if you are very good on the IT side of astronomy.

Karel Teuwen has the kind of setup that amateurs dream of. http://www.dreamscopes.com/ Other good scopes include the Plane Wave ODKs.

Olly

[Merlin66]

Olly,

maybe Jens wants to do spectroscopy not astro Imaging?????? ;-)

[ollypenrice]

Olly,

maybe Jens wants to do spectroscopy not astro Imaging?????? ;-)

Ah yes!

Olly

[jensbilgrav]

Jens, to be a bit more positive I would do an awful lot of homework on the choice of scope. Amateur imagers don't necessarily want utterly enormous focal lengths, they want speed - which means fast F ratios.

They also want mounts that work, that track very accurately. The mounts to consider are Mesu (check out the Mesu Number One flipless design), 10 Micron, Paramount, Astro Physics. You might also consider ASA if you are very good on the IT side of astronomy.

Karel Teuwen has the kind of setup that amateurs dream of. http://www.dreamscopes.com/ Other good scopes include the Plane Wave ODKs.

Olly

Hi again - sorry to have taken over this thread with my equipment-related query .

My own practical experience has been with the Meade 12" 200LX which are used by the Open University for courses at the OAM in Mallorca - and I was well impressed with those.

Also, I have only seen good reviews of the MaxMount 20" - an example can be found here: http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1562

I pretty much want to do everything with the scopes - astrophotography, spectrometry, aperture photometry, positional astronomy, you name it.

Oh, and please spread the word if you think anyone would be interested in the project: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/optical-telescopes-in-sardinia

Thanks for all your feedback

Jens

[Merlin66]

Jens,

I used various LX200 scopes through to the 12" for spectroscopy, but ended up migrating to a C11 on an NEQ6pro.

The problem (only?) with fork mounts is the lack of clearance - I just couldn't fit the spectroscope into the available space....I think you may have similar problems with photometry......Olly will confirm that unless you use "proper" reducers - Optec Nextgen etc the native f ratio will be non-optimal for AP.

[Davey-T]

Olly,

maybe Jens wants to do spectroscopy not astro Imaging?????? ;-)

Maybe he want's to search for exoplanets

Dave

[E621Keith]

Some how I totally missed this thread. I think it is good news, because it will introduce more competition to the entry level market which is currently dominated by Synta. JOC is a big player within China and they have purchased Meade Europe a few years ago and owns ES. It was a matter of time before Meade US go bankrupt or JOC come in to buy them.

When it comes to telescope manufacturing, I have a lot more faith in Chinese made telescope than Mexican made telescope.

One major concern I have in all this -is the future of Coronado and their solar telescopes....

The demands on the opticals are very high and the market very small....unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if the whole Solar stuff was dumped.

... yet my Meade Cornoado Solarmax 60 II has a big blob of glue in the blocking filter. I don't think Meade cared much about quality and quality may improve under Chinese management. I have yet to hear any horror story about ES eyepieces or ES scope, but I hear a lot of negative comments about Meade product.

[JB80]

I searched and couldn't see it posted anywhere so here is an update.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meade-instruments-corp-terminates-joc-202132145.html

IRVINE, Calif., July 16, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Meade Instruments Corp. (MEAD) ("Meade"), (est. 1972) one of the world's largest designers and manufacturers of telescopes and accessories for amateur astronomers, announces the termination of its previously announced Agreement and Plan of Merger with JOC North America LLC and JOCNA Inc., collectively ("JOC"), which was announced May 17, 2013, and the execution of a new Agreement and Plan of Merger with Sunny Optics, Inc. ("SOI") and Sunny Optics Merger Sub, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SOI, both of which are affiliates of Ningbo Sunny Electronic Co., Ltd., collectively ("Sunny") for $4.21 per share or approximately $5.5 million for all shares.

[rowan46]

I am not sure this is good news their only presence in the astro field at the moment is starter scopes and the designs don't fill me with excitement http://www.telescope-binoculars.com.cn/show_hdr.php?xname=7VHNE21&dname=AG5AG21&xpos=0