Meade Telescopes at FLO

[FLO]

Meade telescopes were recently acquired by Orion US. 

So, a relaunch for Meade and a new chapter. 

As a specialist astronomy retailer we are especially pleased to have direct access to Meade's Advanced Coma Free 'ACF' telescopes. 

Coronado solar telescopes are also part of Meade (also now owned by Orion US) so are available again at FLO 😎

Meade telescopes

Meade eyepieces

Coronado solar telescopes

 

[FLO]

Meade Acquisition Corp (aka Meade Instruments) is celebrating its one year reorganisation of Meade Instruments and Meade’s 50th year anniversary 🙂 

The following is from their newsletter received at FLO this morning: 

 

In our first year, the new company has been focused on:

Ramping production at our North America factory
Meade’s Mexico telescope factory is the largest consumer telescope factory outside of China manufacturing telescopes and mounts for advanced and expert amateur astronomers. We have made significant investments of funds and bandwidth reshoring the factory’s raw material and parts supply chains, and in manufacturing tooling. The Advanced Coma-FreeTM (ACF) telescope primary, secondary and corrector plate mirror blanks have been and continue to be manufactured exclusively for Meade by a trusted partner in the USA.

For the factory production, we continue to invest in our personnel. We have increased both the size of the production workforce and have also cross-trained in order to increase our production capacity. Critically, we are rebuilding the North America - USA and Mexico - supply chains in order to source essential parts. We have made quite a bit of progress and began ramping production in Q1 2022 of the LX90, LX200, LX600, tripods, respective OTAs, and select Coronado® telescopes. We still have a few issues with the supply chains for StarLockTM and select Coronado models, which are being actively worked and we expect to resolve by October.

Improving Product Quality
Next, we have invested in Quality Control engineering and staff resources. Our product quality confidence is reflected in the increase of the warranty period for Meade-branded product for the original purchaser from one to two years on sales from a Meade Authorized Reseller on or after June 1, 2021. We are also tackling parts availability and pricing for warranty and non-warranty support.

Improving Customer Support
For customer support, we have invested in increased staffing, workflow software, metrics setting and tracking, product and cross-training.

Adding Products and Product Lines
In addition to rebuilding the supply chain for the existing products, we have launched and relaunched new telescopes, accessories, and binoculars. For example, the number of PolarisTM and InfinityTM products and accessories available through our Direct Import program increased in Q2 from four to seven telescopes. We also will be launching additional accessories and a new 20x80 astronomy binocular in late June.

Moreover, we are pleased to announce the relaunch of the popular LX85 EQ mount. We have re-shored this product and its supply chain to our factory, and we can proudly now call this product “Designed and Manufactured in North America”. We are on track for first shipments in late August which will include 6” and 8” ACF, and 6” and 8” Reflectors.

We have quite a bit more in the pipeline for 2022 and 2023 and will make future announcements as we get closer to launch dates.

[FLO]

2 minutes ago, FLO said:

Moreover, we are pleased to announce the relaunch of the popular LX85 EQ mount. We have re-shored this product and its supply chain to our factory, and we can proudly now call this product “Designed and Manufactured in North America”. We are on track for first shipments in late August which will include 6” and 8” ACF, and 6” and 8” Reflectors.

We are especially looking forward to receiving this 'new' mount 🙂 

Steve

[F15Rules]

This all sounds very positive..

TBH, I've not been a fan of Meade scopes ever, but have used and liked a number of their older eyepieces, and the news that they will be building eq mounts in the USA is very heartening.

I think recent world events, if they teach us anything, have shown how dependent we have become on distant and often brittle supply chains. 

In my view anything that encourages the "reshoring" (as Meade put it) of manufacturing of products to closer to where their consumers live has to be a good thing👍.

I wish them well under their new setup.

Dave

[wookie1965]

I have a Meade 127 emc refractor after changing the focuser to a skywatcher dual focuser the scope is very very good had some amazing views through it. 

[Greymouser]

44 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

I think recent world events, if they teach us anything, have shown how dependent we have become on distant and often brittle supply chains. 

 

 

Couldn't agree more, but I do hope the lessons get learned by those who lead us, because the cynic in me, thinks it may not happen on past performance.

[DaveL59]

10 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

Couldn't agree more, but I do hope the lessons get learned by those who lead us, because the cynic in me, thinks it may not happen on past performance.

the problem is only a little in part to who's the leader, more a case of company and investors bean counters wanting less labour cost and more profit from the same product line, unfortunately nations have historically done little to rein that ideology in. No strikes also helps, a lot! Consumers of course love that the expensive shiny thing is now more affordable and rarely care. Same's happened with call centres and support roles not just manufacturing so it is heartening to hear of someone who's reversing the process, well done Meade/Orion US 🙂 

[Greymouser]

6 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

the problem is only a little in part to who's the leader, more a case of company and investors bean counters wanting less labour cost and more profit from the same product line, unfortunately nations have historically done little to rein that ideology in. No strikes also helps, a lot! Consumers of course love that the expensive shiny thing is now more affordable and rarely care. Same's happened with call centres and support roles not just manufacturing so it is heartening to hear of someone who's reversing the process, well done Meade/Orion US 🙂 

Not sure I can agree really, if there was a will there would be a way. The trade deficit could be turned round very quickly, if it became too expensive to import from the likes of China etc. Simplistic I know, but the world just does not need goods being transported so far, when they can be produced locally with the right motivation. This heat wave is the obvious example of why it needs to stop. It is just not sustainable.

Neither is this conversation either as it is in danger of drifting into politics, sorry.

[DaveL59]

1 minute ago, Greymouser said:

Not sure I can agree really, if there was a will there would be a way. The trade deficit could be turned round very quickly, if it became too expensive to import from the likes of China etc. Simplistic I know, but the world just does not need goods being transported so far, when they can be produced locally with the right motivation. This heat wave is the obvious example of why it needs to stop. It is just not sustainable.

Neither is this conversation either as it is in danger of drifting into politics, sorry.

inclined to agree, the right incentives and things could've been different, hopefully that'll be the way things do go so the environmental costs are drastically reduced 🙂 

[F15Rules]

59 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

I have a Meade 127 emc refractor after changing the focuser to a skywatcher dual focuser the scope is very very good had some amazing views through it. 

Fair comment, Paul👍

I confess I'd forgotten about the Meade 127 fracs .I actually owned a Bresser-Meade 127L achromat about 10 years ago and it was a fine scope..

.. I actually sold it to John Huntley..(does anyone know what's happened to John, who used to be such a prolific poster on SGL?).

Anyway, I stand corrected on my comment about Meade scopes (I was actually thinking more about their SCTs😊). I also now remember that PhilJ (Phil Jaworek) from SGL had a Meade 127 ED which he rated very highly..

Dave

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, F15Rules said:

In my view anything that encourages the "reshoring" (as Meade put it) of manufacturing of products to closer to where their consumers live has to be a good thing👍.

Or you could move to Japan, Dave-san

[F15Rules]

9 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Or you could move to Japan, Dave-san

I couldn't, Jeremy..

I'd starve ..

Dave

[Whistlin Bob]

2 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

the scope is very very good

I have a Meade 105etx, which optically is quite marvellous. Let's not talk about the electronics in the mount though....

 

1 hour ago, F15Rules said:

does anyone know what's happened to John,

 I miss his posts. I do hope he's Ok.

[CraigT82]

Their pricing looks pretty good, looking at their ACF SCT OTAs which are cheaper than the equivalent sized Celestron Edges.  OTA Weights seem on par now too which is good. 
 

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

the news that they will be building eq mounts in the USA is very heartening.

Made in Mexico I think… if they could have used the words “Made in the USA” they most certainly would have done! 

Edited July 19, 2022 by CraigT82

[Guest]

My hopes are they bring an improved version of the Lightbridge dobs.  

[FLO]

11 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Made in Mexico I think… if they could have used the words “Made in the USA” they most certainly would have done! 

I wondered about this then learned Mexico is in North America, so they can legitimately say “Designed and Manufactured in North America”. 

Steve

[CraigT82]

39 minutes ago, FLO said:

I wondered about this then learned Mexico is in North America, so they can legitimately say “Designed and Manufactured in North America”. 

Steve

Exactly, legitimate but a little cheeky as people will glance at that and think it means the USA

 

[FLO]

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

Exactly, legitimate but a little cheeky as people will glance at that and think it means the USA

Meade is however now wholly US owned and their efforts to 'reshore' manufacturing to the US are real and genuine. We wish them well. 

Steve

[neil phillips]

Back in the day i used to go to BCF Telescope house as a young man and drool over the blue shiny things on the stand. I had a 7" F15 Maksutov ( true 7" 8/3.4 oversized primary ) 

Lovely telescopes with superb optics. I remember the old lx200s well though I owned only lx50s and lx 10s from time to time. 8" and 10" SCTs. Fond memories. Will be interesting to see how the optics and consistency pan out. I will be watching this. 

[russ]

I have fond memories of Meade too, so great to see Orion US are giving them another chance.

My de-forked ETX 90 and LX90 10" were awesome scopes. As someone else said further up the thread, the mounts and electronics let them down. Having bought the LX90 and then finding I needed a cork mod kit to actually make it usable was disappointing. 

[Martthebass]

Loved my old US of A built LX90 back in the day, it was only light pollution and the neighbour's garden becoming a forest that made me part with it.  A  holiday in Devon in the early 2000s at a true dark sky site opened my eyes to what a 8" SCT could do visually in the right conditions.

Good to see that they are looking to achieve a viable North American production base, if my years in procurement have taught me one thing it's that Chinese supply and supply chains can come back and bite you on the proverbial.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Martthebass

[Earl]

Many things are made in Mexico and go through good years and bad (thinking Guitars myself), pretty much applies to many other places too.

[Martthebass]

9 minutes ago, Earl said:

Many things are made in Mexico and go through good years and bad (thinking Guitars myself), pretty much applies to many other places too.

Thinking Mexican Fenders here?

I've had some pretty shonky MIM stuff but the JMJ mustang bass is a peach and as good as anything made in the US.

[SthBohemia]

Late 90's when resided in Australia purchases a 2nd hand LX200 OTA from USA (back then USPS offered surface mail). Still have it and it performs extremely well.

Maybe of interest, I have had it apart on numerous times for cleaning. Upon one occasion, many years ago, I deliberately replaced the corrector 120 degrees from its original position and to my amazement there was no optical degradation.. Wrote to 'Unky guru of SCT's' Rod Mollise' who suggested to rotate it another 90 degrees and test. There was no noticeable performance difference. Conclusion being that I either had a very well manufactured Meade or I needed a new set of eyes!

Bottom line being, I would not exchange the 'old' Meade for a new one...

[ollypenrice]

I have a Meade ACF and it's pretty darned good. I should use it more!

Olly