Meade AR6 user review

I ordered the Meade LXD55 6" refractor on September 23, 2002. I thought I would have to wait 4 to 6 weeks. Well, I was updated on the status of my order a few times and each time the delays became larger. 4 weeks became 8 weeks became 12 weeks. So I cancelled my order and ordered from B&H. I ordered it on Wednesday and got it Friday! Anyway, B&H had them in stock.

When the boxes arrived, I was surprised at how large they were, but there is plenty of Styrofoam. My scope came without a scratch or dent. Collimation was pretty good, so I imagine that Fed Ex handled it with some care. (Maybe they knocked it into alignment). Assembling the scope and mount is as straight forward as it gets. Common sense almost does you more good with this step than reading the convoluted instruction manual that comes with the LXD55. I'm not for a minute suggesting that you don't follow the instructions, but the order and language of the manual seems out of sequence and disjointed. Still understandable, but I found my eyes were straining a bit. Overall, fit and finish of the scope was not only attractive, but seemed fairly solid as well.

After I assembled the scope and plugged the battery pack and Autostar's controller in the panel, I switched it on. I was greeted with a tone from the Autostar hand box. Following the manual is critical during the next few steps. I entered in the information that the scope requested, date, time, daylight savings time (yes/no), location, my cholesterol level.... a little humor there...... my point is, it asks for, and you can enter in a lot of data! Following the instructions, I trained the drives and found that the motors weren't as strained as I thought they would be. The OTA is fairly heavy, so balancing your OTA and counterweights to get the smoothest motion in your typical observing configuration is going to pay off with better tracking and extended battery and motor life.

First night out. Went out and positioned the scope into "polar home" turned on the Autostar and did "align easy". It picked Betelgeuse and Capella as alignment stars. The motors engaged and I must have gotten lucky on my polar alignment, because pointing accuracy put the target stars in the FOV in the supplied 26mm EP the first time. Although Capella was almost out. I manually slewed to Saturn and at 240x, could immediately see Cassini's division and some faint surface cloud detail. I am impressed! After doing some minor centering and fine tuning, everything seemed to work as advertised. However, clouds rolled in pretty much as I just had got everything lined up, so I haven't got a chance to perform a GOTO yet, but all indications are that the mount is working fine. I'll just come out and say it.... The tripod is way too small for this mount/scope combo. It will handle the weight, but vibrations will be a problem if you plan on doing astrophotography. Whenever possible, do not extend the tripods legs. The whole thing is much more stable with the legs fully retracted. I found dampening times to be in the 3-4 second range out of the box. Tolerable, but annoying when viewing at high power or trying to do photography, I'd wager.

The Objective lens is a greenish/purple color and the front end of the scope smells like fresh paint. Probably the flat black paint that covers the inside of the tube. The focuser seems smooth and solid. The scope's focuser is 2", but comes with a 1.25" adapter. The diagonal that is supplied seems a little cheap and is made of plastic, but it works and you can upgrade if it bothers you. Overall, very nice equipment.

Conclusion: I like this scope. The tripod is too small, but that can be fixed easily. The optics seem good with only a trace of C.A. when I looked at Saturn. The motors and mount look beefy and seem to be more than adequate to push around the OTA, but proper balancing will make a difference. I have yet to perform a GOTO operation, so my opinion is still in the making, but so far this instrument looks like a bargain for the features and aperture.

- Dave Hren