Telescope Reviews: Meade TravelView 10x50

I was at Radio Shack the other day looking for something and noticed they had a set of Meade TravelView 10x50s on sale for $25. They peaked my interest so later that night I looked around on here and read some reviews on them. Most folks seemed to think they were alright for the money for kids or an extra pair to keep in the truck.

As an aside, I'm a newbie when it comes to using binos more than casually. My current best binos are my Nikon Action Extreme 10x50s. So, while I think they're great for the time being though you may not, but these are what I have to compare to.

So, the next day I went back up to Radio Shack and looked them over. Fit and finish was so-so. You could see some grease around the joints and bits of adhesive on the retaining rings for the objectives. The frame was nice and the rubber had a good feel to it. No scratches, dings, or any other obvious blemishes. I had trouble seeing any internal reflections in the store so I can't say much about the coatings. Next I tried moving and focusing them. The binoculars were stiff to open and close and the center focus wheel had some slack in it. The right diopter was stiff as well.

I looked through them around the store and through the store's front window to the building across the street. First, I looked through the binos at the flat horizontal doorframe and noticed that it appeared to bow looking through the binos. I looked across the street and around the store some more and noticed the image looked all right. Not great mind you, but acceptable. The image was fairly sharp in the middle and got softer near the edges. They weren't the greatest binos I'd used but I figured for $25 they'd be good. So, I bought them and took them home.

Later that night (last night) I pulled them out to look at some of my current favorites M42 and M45. There were patchy clouds but holes managed to open up for me. I pointed them at M45 and noted the 6 or 7 really bright stars that stand out to me the most and that was about it. I messed with the focus some but couldn't seem to resolve the images as sharply as I'd have liked. I settled for the best I could get out of them and looked again. Same stars as before but none of the background stars I was used to seeing.

Disappointed I turned towards M42 and looked at it. Like before I could not get the image to sharpen. The best I was able to get looked like a blue smudge with the other bright stars to the side. I couldn't see the 3 bright stars in Orion's Nebula or the regular background stars. I thought that perhaps there were some thin clouds that were obscuring my view so I ran inside and got the Nikons out. Through the Nikons everything looked like I expected it to, sharp points of lights for stars, background stars, etc. Back to the Meades...same as before. Back to the Nikons regular view...Meades fuzzy.

In conclusion (bet you were waiting for these words) I can't recommend the Meades for Astronomy. The focuser was loose and moved if you pushed on the eyepieces too hard. While the image looked sharp terrestrially (in the store) I could not get a good image looking at the night sky. I wouldn't want to use them or make anyone else use them. So, this morning I took them back. I know other folks have had luck with them but I wasn't one of them. If you're interested in them be sure you keep the receipt.

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Orion XT8
Orion 102mm Mak
Homemade ST80
Nikon 10x50 AE
Nikon 8x40 A

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