AR-5 Review by Lynn Laux           8-2-2002

I ordered my AR-5, LXD55 5 inch refractor from Shutan Camera in Chicago. They promised a 3 week delay...I ordered on July 3 and received it on July 27 in the morning. It came in two boxes direct from Meade. I was able to unpack and assemble the whole scope and mount in about 45 minutes...directions were clear and easy to follow, but then my first 'real' scope was a VX80 which I put on the GP mount (and I installed the motors myself), so this was a snap.

Well, a weather front moved in that day (of course!) and although we had gotten no rain for 5 straight weekends, it proceeded to rain every night until Tuesday, July 30. I headed down to my Astronomy Club site and got ready to view.

The first inkling I had that something was not quite right was when I was prompted to put in the telescope model and LXD55 was not on the menu. Well, I went ahead anyway...polar aligned with Polaris, trained the drive, put in the site, etc....when it slewed to Arcturus, I knew something was wrong because the scope was not even in the general vicinity...so then I figured I had to get that model somehow into the Autostar.

(OK, so the salesman did try to sell me the cable, but I told him that I wanted to get the scope first, and then figure out what I needed. Score: Neil the salesman, 1; Lynn, the smarty blonde, 0). Well, rather than get all frustrated, I just decided to star gaze the old fashioned way, using star hopping and star maps.

Wow! M13 was absolutely stunning! I started with my 40 mm Celestron Plossl, the went to the 26 mm Meade Super Plossl, but the best view I got was with my 7mm Nagler! M13 was thousands of tiny stars, and there was a depth of view I had never seen before!! I could see those arms you see in photos! The telescope tracked reasonably well, considering that it was programmed with the wrong mount. I then went to M4 (it has eluded us here in the Midwest all summer). Views were crisp and clean, very pretty! I also viewed M22...again, crisp clear images, very little chromatic aberration, and just a hint of color with the 15mm Meade Plossl.

The views of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas were out of this world ( I know, I know)...what I liked best was the fact that the 8X50 finder scope had both of them in the same field of view. The Wild Duck (M11) was beautiful, due to the clarity it looked less like a flight of ducks (as in my VX80) and more like the star cluster it is. There were other NGC objects in this area, but since I had never viewed them before with my other scope, I was not altogether sure at what I was looking at...I will have to bone up on my star charts again! Lastly, in my ever present search for the Whirlpool Galaxy ( the city of Akron is just to the North and tends to wash it out) I took a good look at Alcor and Mizar. Now, I know that to some of you this will seem silly, but I did not know that Mizar was a double, and this scope split that distance with very little trouble using my 40 mm Celestron Plossl.

Next day I called Meade and they told me I had the old version of Autostar and had to download the updated version from their site (see "score" above). I also talked to the people at Oceanside and they were very helpful, and their site had many helpful hints. So I knew I wasn't the only one this had happened to; but I would much rather have this scope here at home than at the factory waiting for the update!! So now I am anxious to get the Autostar working, and will be heading to several star parties over the next few weeks...look for pictures of me and my scope and my friends!!

Clear skies!
Lynn