Meade ds-114at

[buba]

Hi All,

Have been offered this scope by a pal at work but dont now how much i should pay him for it he said make me an offer ,its in good condition but i no liitle about this scope as im a newbie,any advice would be great.

Cheers all

Buba

[rowan46]

I am a newbie myself but what i have bee able to find out about this scope isn't promising. I would suggest you find out how much you can afford, what you want to see, etc then come back with some suggestions you like. the people on here will then give you sensible advice to help you on your way. the scope has bad reviews and the general advice for this scope seems to be get something better. I know this seems to the advice for most starter scopes but the best reviews of this scope say the mirrors are good thats it. it would be a shame to ruin what could be an enjoyable hobby just because you havn't got the right equipment.

[pvaz]

I googled some reviews and things don't seam good.

Eyepieces offered are plastic and basically garbage. You could replace them but the focuser is 0.95" wide and now the standard is either 1.25" or 2". This means you'd probably have to find old EPs 2nd hand.

The tripod is plastic too so it will be very bad to observe with any wind.

You can get brand new similar scopes, but with more quality (not a toy) for about 130£. Examples:

http://firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=Heritage_130P

http://firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=SW_explorer_130

http://firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=ev90az3

[Demonperformer]

Will you have a chance to try it out with your friend before you purchase? Meet up one clear night and see what you can actually observe with it.

Venus is a good test object in the early evenings at the moment. It is bright and low down, which means if the scope performs well on that, it will cope with almost any object, within the limitations of a 114mm mirror.

[Brendan of Borg]

Words in my mind are 'buyer beware'!!

[Doc]

I basically place the Meade ds-114at in the same league as the high street or Argos line up of telescopes. They are not especially well built and have cheap plastic focusers and the eyepieces supplied with them are the Huygien type ones which are very basic. As far as I know it has a spherical primary mirror which means it has a corrector built into the focuser, this makes it very hard to collimate. The tripod is very flimsy and the scope will take a while to dampen any vibrations.

Basically unless it's really cheap save your money and buy a Skywatcher 130P for about £130.

I wouldn't pay no more then £20 for it.

[Daniel-K]

i bought one of these from new the other week big mistake this was ment to be my first proper telescope and had nothing but problems its a pile of Rubbish basicaly that Rubbish that today only 1 week or so later have gone and bought a 8inch skywatcher dob 200p off here

[David Galvin]

Well Danny, it looks like your suffering from aperture fever now. You won't stop now until you have got a 30" Dobs. Maybe we will see you on Wednesday eh.