Meade 4mm Research Grade

[Timebandit]

Hello. As you may of noticed I am really a televue man if at all possible. So a Meade in the camp was a surprise to me. I had considered a nagler zoom but with the prices they are now, justifying such a purchase is very hard nowerdays. So when a 4mm Meade RG came up for sale , I was a little bit interested . I had read somewhere years ago these were no ordinary eyepiece from Meade. What I could remember from what I read was that they were made in Japan and had the mystery MOP stamp on it, and if I remember correctly a highly  regarded performance aspect. Therefore as I had not seen one of these come up for sale and managed to purchase it for sensible money . 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you like my little Ortho☺

[John]

I've not used any of the Meade RG eyepieces but they do have a very good reputation on forums that I frequent

Just as well that it's a "volcano top" design - getting to the eye lens and the correct eye position with a "flat top" 4mm ortho can be hard work !

I'm sure it will perform very well

[Roy Challen]

Nice little lightweight eyepieces, them Meade RGO's. I had the 7 and 10.5 mm - two more EP's I probably shouldn't have sold!

[Louis D]

Make sure to post a first light report!

[Stu]

Very nice. I too have the 7 and 10.5mm, very sharp and light too. Great for binoviewers.....or they would be if I could find another!

[Dude_with_the_tube]

Oh dear

firstly i would like to congratulate you on the purchase of the 4mm RG ortho as this particular one is hard to find on it self and a lot of people who are collecting / using Meade RG`s will be prepared to pay a good money for this little beauty.However, be prepared for quite a tight eye relief of 3.8mm and i would suggest not to use this eye piece when its minus temperatures outside (aka cold winter) as you might end up with this eye piece permanently attached to your eye ball

7mm ortho and 20mm widefield (erfle) are relatively common as they where supplied with Meade research grade dobs at that time.Rest of the focal range is quite hard to find.

Your particular one is the second run of Meade RG`s. First run was stamped "Meade" where second one was "MEADE" .Dont worry,there is not a penny difference in performance or in they built quality. (both had MOP stamp on them)

I have used the 4mm on occasions of good seeing and they are crackers.

I have done a review of meade Rg`s (whole set),review can be found here on this forum.

Only at that time i didnt test the erfles,what has been done now and i can confirm that the whole set is good.Actually i will correct myself.Whole set is so good that i sold my  2 sets of BGO`s and a few other eye pieces and hunted down all the Meade RG`s (apart of 32mm).And i actually did it twice so now i have 2 sets of them as i binoview with them.Took me 1.5 years to find 2 sets.

Not to repeat anything,they are light weight,ortho will work on any focal length and any type of telescope,where Erfles (widefields) due to they design will be better off on a slow-ish scope of F6 and slower.I use them on F9 refractor.

As Stu said,they are absolutely beautiful in binoviewers and will not upset balance of telescope due to they feather light weight. 36 + years old now but still top performers. Superb also in cyclops (mono) mode for planetary,DS,double star.neutral colour,super sharp,top class performers for very reasonable money.

I have been using Meade Rg`s exclusively for close to 2 years now.Not planning to replace them with anything so far.(well,zeiss zao II maybe hahaha)

Got any questions about the Meade RG`s,drop me a PM or ask here.Will gladly answer.

[alan potts]

Many congratulations on your new eyepiece which as DWTTube states are hard to come by, nice post from him too. I have never seen one so thanks for the shots though that eye-relief sounds very tight.

[F15Rules]

Hi Timebandit:-)

That's a nice eyepiece, one of the less common RGs.

I've owned the 4, 7 and 10.5 units and I felt that optically the 4mm was the best. Although the eye relief IS tight, the volcano top design makes it easier to use. The brushed aluminium barrel rather than the chromed brass of the Circle T's  means that they are indeed featherweight.

I personally prefer the volcano top design, and I've often thought that if the Baader Genuine orthos had been in a volcano top format they would have been pretty much the perfect high power eyepiece.

It's probably my eyes, but I couldn't see much difference between the BGOs and RG orthos..but comfort wise I'd say the RGs just edged it.

The one exception for me were the Antares Elite HD (high definition) orthos (NOT the orange lettering earlier ones, but the later green letter versions).  They look like a clone of the BGOs, but honestly were better. I was lucky enough to find 3 of these, at 7, 9 and 12.5mm. They were truly superb double star and planetary eyepieces and the best orthos I've ever owned. Jules (Nightfisher) now has the 9mm I think it is, and loves it . I should've kept all 3...story of my life!!:-)

Enjoy your RG, it should be great!

Dave