1511 replies to this topic

[steve t]

Y'all remember my Vixen 4-slot rotary eyepiece holder:

 

Celestron (V) Eyepiece Turret S01.jpg

 

Went to use it with the C80 the other night, and... it would not rotate.  And, there was gross goop on the back.  Swamp Heat took its toll:  the original lube (like thin Vaseline) melted, ran out at the seams...  plastic on plastic must be like a brake.

Man that sucks.

My like doesn't mean like.

I hope it's salvageable. 

[clamchip]

Meade Instruments Corp early history:

http://www.fundingun...ration-history/

 

Robert

Edited by clamchip, 13 December 2021 - 06:08 PM.

[CHASLX200]

Meade was the best and i grew up with them since 1977. I would order something and get it in less than a week in 1977.

[ccwemyss]

It's interesting that they focus on how the ETX and LX200 came out after Diebel bought the company back in 1991, and don't mention that the ED refractor series was introduced in 1992. Just shows how much the catadioptric telescopes had come to dominate the market in the prior decade. 

 

Chip W. 

[CHASLX200]

It's interesting that they focus on how the ETX and LX200 came out after Diebel bought the company back in 1991, and don't mention that the ED refractor series was introduced in 1992. Just shows how much the catadioptric telescopes had come to dominate the market in the prior decade. 

 

Chip W. 

I think they had many probs with the ED line. Also i don't see anything about the LX5 in later 1987. I was no longer a Meade lover after 1999 and my 7" ED.  But the LX200 was for sure a world changer and always dreamed of a scope that could find objects for you in the 70's.  

[Kasmos]

I've always been kind of prejudice against Meade. Diebel always rubbed me as a bit of a copycat and ruthless shark. Didn't he once work for Cave, then after learning from them, actively seek to put them out of business? It was sort of the same with Celestron. Copy and conquer. Some might also say he made a plastic Questar. The fact that he married the daughter of Towa always cracked me up. I've read that she didn't speak english so it kind of makes one wonder if it was partly a business move? I guess you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. As they say, nice guys finish last.

 

Yeah, I know competition is good for consumers and it sounds like he was good at saving the company and bringing out innovations. I'm just not sure if I would have liked him? 

Edited by Kasmos, 14 December 2021 - 02:39 AM.

[Bomber Bob]

Making sense out of Kenko Mounts:

 

- KDS:  compact AZ, with standard photo tripod 1/4-20 base socket, and Vixen clamp.  OTA hangs off the side. Black, gray, or white paint.

- NEW KDS / KDS II:  same as KDS, but the OTA rides on top.  Black, gray, khaki, olive, or white paint.  Lots of options (some 3rd party), like a longer and/or angled altitude arm.

- KES:  1st 1980s Kenko EQ.  Big Barrel axis castings - identical diameters.  Single-Axis drive.  Dark gray / charcoal paint; some are apparently textured finish.

- NES:  2nd 1980s Kenko EQ.  Resembles Mizar & Vixen same-era EQs.  Dual-Axis drive capable. Dark gray paint.  [Uncommon in the USA.  Same mount as B&L / Bushnell Banner Series.]  NES replaced by...

- SES:  Sky Explorer 1990s to Present (?).  China-made CG-4 / EQ-5 generic EQ.  Dual-Axis drive, and Go-To capable.  Usually white paint. [Very similar to Bresser EQ.]

- SDS:  Sky Dream 2000s to Present.  Economy Model EQ.  Looks like a heavily modded Classic Towa EQ-2.  Single-Axis drive (same clutch mechanism as EQ-2).  Proprietary Hinged Rings per scope model.  Kenko sea-foam green paint.

- SWS:  Sky Walker 2000s to Present.  Even cheaper version of the SDS.  Closely resembles D-K version of the Towa EQ-2.  Single-Axis drive.  Charcoal "speckle" paint. * There's also an SWA - alt/az Sky Walker - standard yoke mount with altitude rod.

- SMS:  Sky Memo 2000s to Present.  China-made ultra-compact EQ, with standard photo tripod 1/4-20 base socket, and Vixen clamp.  OTA "caps" the polar axis.  Built-in polar alignment scope, and variable speed control.  Some have a small LCD display.  Mostly red, with some blue color schemes.  

Edited by Bomber Bob, 13 December 2021 - 08:39 PM.

[clamchip]

Here's a very good article:

                   

                    Hindle Unobstructed Newtonian

                                        VS

                           Oblique Herschelian

                           

                            which also includes

 

 Diffraction Effects due to Axial Obstructions in Telescopes:

        http://www.brayebroo...INDLE _NEWT.pdf

Edited by clamchip, 14 December 2021 - 07:41 PM.

[Bomber Bob]

One Word for new folks getting started on this crazy collecting:  Standardization

 

If like me you buy a lot of orphan old scopes (OTA without a mount), you're going to run into:  Great Old Scope, but how do I mount it / use it??  After a lot of trial & (mostly!) error, I settled on Vixen-style dovetails as the standard; and, I bolt the rings to the dovetail.  Most of my dovetails are 8cm, but for the longer / heavier scopes, I'll use 25cm to 30cm lengths.  I prefer the SVBONY dovetails with 2 long slots for attaching rings; and, these slots are machined so that the screw / bolt heads don't intrude into the clamp's channel.  On about half my buys, the old scope includes the original tube rings.  If not... it can become a scavenger hunt for rings that'll fit.  For some of my 60mm scopes, I've used the plastic rings normally used with large Canon telephoto lenses.

 

But, BB, lots of old scope mounts don't have a dovetail clamp!  Yes... that's why I settled on Mizar EQs for my small refractors (up to 5" aperture).  Remove the original cradle, and you have options from ADM and SVBONY -- one & two knob clamps that'll fit just about any old EQ mount.  For alt/az mounts, I buy only those that already have a Vixen-style clamp.  Standardization!  I can swap scopes in seconds with no worries.

 

My final act of standardization:  Ditch as many of the .965" accessory adapters as possible.  Work nights, I don't want to be fiddling with this, that, and the other.  By the start of 2022, all of my Keeper refractors will have Vixen 36.4 to 1.25" adapters; unless they came natively equipped for 1.25" stuff.

 

When you have a bunch (or, too many!) old scopes, and limited cloud-free nights, the fewer equipment hassles, the better.  Only took me 8 years on CN to figure that out...

[MGAR]

I've always been kind of prejudice against Meade. Diebel always rubbed me as a bit of a copycat and ruthless shark. Didn't he once work for Cave, then after learning from them, actively seek to put them out of business? It was sort of the same with Celestron. Copy and conquer. Some might also say he made a plastic Questar. The fact that he married the daughter of Towa always cracked me up. I've read that she didn't speak english so it kind of makes one wonder if it was partly a business move? I guess you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. As they say, nice guys finish last.

 

Yeah, I know competition is good for consumers and it sounds like he was good at saving the company and bringing out innovations. I'm just not sure if I would have liked him? 

I got to say Meade was way more civil than the Celestron sexist sales of the time. The LX200 was the pinnacle for the Goto revolution and the plastic Questar ETX was also good. Even though a plastic mount you can now print and replace any part today, the OTA was nicely built BTW.

 

Towa must have been in bed with everybody, even the Tasco 9F I picked up has accessories made by them.

[ccwemyss]

Diebel understood the value of high quality marketing material. Tom Johnson liked to feature his daughter in advertising. 

 

Chip W. 

[Kasmos]

Diebel understood the value of high quality marketing material. Tom Johnson liked to feature his daughter in advertising. 

 

Chip W. 

Celestron's ads didn't strike me as that big of deal. It wasn't like they were dressed in a provocative manner and then you have to consider the times they were done in. Which one was his daughter? I always figured they were some of the ladies from the staff.

 

Wasn't Tom Cave's daughter one of the women featured in his catalogs? 

Edited by Kasmos, 24 December 2021 - 10:28 PM.

[ccwemyss]

And Marj Christens was in some of the early AP ads. Just shows how a lot of these companies were really family businesses. 

 

A bygone era.

 

Chip W,

[tim53]

I've always been kind of prejudice against Meade. Diebel always rubbed me as a bit of a copycat and ruthless shark. Didn't he once work for Cave, then after learning from them, actively seek to put them out of business? It was sort of the same with Celestron. Copy and conquer. Some might also say he made a plastic Questar. The fact that he married the daughter of Towa always cracked me up. I've read that she didn't speak english so it kind of makes one wonder if it was partly a business move? I guess you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. As they say, nice guys finish last.

 

Yeah, I know competition is good for consumers and it sounds like he was good at saving the company and bringing out innovations. I'm just not sure if I would have liked him? 

Diebel did make a deliberate effort to put Cave out of business.  It worked, too.  He told us at a christmas lunch, probably in 1978, that he intended to go after Celestron next.  We didn't know about the SCTs being developed at the time (in Japan), but I stumbled upon them by accident in 1979 when his sister sent me to the storeroom where they were, to retrieve something.  She quickly realized her mistake and I got called into John's office for a pep talk, where I was sworn to secrecy.  

 

Not only did his wife not speak English when they got married, he didn't speak Japanese either.  It may have been a business arrangement, but I do think he truly cared for her.

 

I left Meade in fall of 1979, came back to work on SCT parts in fall of 1981, and finally was laid off in spring of 1982, which was probably the kindest thing he did for me. 

 

I'd see him at RTMC for many years after that.  We always had enjoyable conversations.  I haven't seen him since he last came up to Big Bear, maybe 15 or 20 years ago now?  I can't remember.

 

I've owned a Meade 10" LX5 I got cheap on craigslist.  It didn't hold a candle to my home-built 10" f/6 Newtonian.  I still have a 4" Mirror lens with mediocre optics, and a 4" SCT (2045/LX3) with excellent optics.  Overall, I've never felt the desire to seek them out, though.  Not that I wouldn't buy another one if the price was right.  I was probably soured by Meade's business ethics when I worked there.  But that's kind of like my loss of interest in working on split window VW buses - when I was having to tinker with mine pretty much every weekend to get to work, they weren't that fun anymore.

 

-Tim.

Edited by tim53, 25 December 2021 - 01:23 AM.

[deSitter]

I think they had many probs with the ED line. Also i don't see anything about the LX5 in later 1987. I was no longer a Meade lover after 1999 and my 7" ED.  But the LX200 was for sure a world changer and always dreamed of a scope that could find objects for you in the 70's.  

My 127ED, a really early example from the mid-90s, is my favorite scope. I have put umpteen hours into my 10" Royce Newtonian and it is a wonderful telescope, but it is SUCH a pain in the astronomy. It's always complaining about seeing, tube currents, weight, balance, viewing position, etc. etc. etc. The ED is just a pure joy to use.

 

-drl

Attached Thumbnails

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[deSitter]

Meade Instruments Corp early history:

http://www.fundingun...ration-history/

 

Robert

At the 2017 eclipse in Idaho - 127ED and ETX90 - both superb optically!

 

-drl

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[CHASLX200]

My 127ED, a really early example from the mid-90s, is my favorite scope. I have put umpteen hours into my 10" Royce Newtonian and it is a wonderful telescope, but it is SUCH a pain in the astronomy. It's always complaining about seeing, tube currents, weight, balance, viewing position, etc. etc. etc. The ED is just a pure joy to use.

 

-drl

My 127ED was pretty good also.

[RichA]

Y'all remember my Vixen 4-slot rotary eyepiece holder:

 

Celestron (V) Eyepiece Turret S01.jpg

 

Went to use it with the C80 the other night, and... it would not rotate.  And, there was gross goop on the back.  Swamp Heat took its toll:  the original lube (like thin Vaseline) melted, ran out at the seams...  plastic on plastic must be like a brake.

They build cars for California and telescopes for...uh..maybe San Diego.  Why must lubicants used always be so cheap?

Non-curing silicone dielectric grease is a good sub.

[RichA]

Meade Instruments Corp early history:

http://www.fundingun...ration-history/

 

Robert

 I wonder if allowing this might have kept them in America or at least, America-Mexico?  Probably not.

 

1990:
    FTC blocks merger of Meade with competitor Celestron International.

[RichA]

I got to say Meade was way more civil than the Celestron sexist sales of the time. The LX200 was the pinnacle for the Goto revolution and the plastic Questar ETX was also good. Even though a plastic mount you can now print and replace any part today, the OTA was nicely built BTW.

 

Towa must have been in bed with everybody, even the Tasco 9F I picked up has accessories made by them.

The original OTA (stripped of plastic) was all-aluminum and well-done.  The scopes are optically and uniformly excellent but the mounts lacked quality.  I always wished they upped the game and made a mount out of metal, like the old Celestron C5 and C90.  Even the B&L 4" SCT had a metal mount.

[RichA]

I've always been kind of prejudice against Meade. Diebel always rubbed me as a bit of a copycat and ruthless shark. Didn't he once work for Cave, then after learning from them, actively seek to put them out of business? It was sort of the same with Celestron. Copy and conquer. Some might also say he made a plastic Questar. The fact that he married the daughter of Towa always cracked me up. I've read that she didn't speak english so it kind of makes one wonder if it was partly a business move? I guess you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. As they say, nice guys finish last.

 

Yeah, I know competition is good for consumers and it sounds like he was good at saving the company and bringing out innovations. I'm just not sure if I would have liked him? 

Gee, one company trying to take market share from another, how....awful.

[ccwemyss]

I think where people get frustrated by competition is when the strategy is designed to drive out an established company that produces high quality items by undercutting them with lower quality copies and more aggressive marketing, so that consumers lose access to the better product. I'm not saying that this is what Meade did (they also developed innovative and high quality equipment). But I think it is often what people are referring to when they disparage competition.

 

On the flip side, everyone applauds when a company gains market share by delivering a better or more innovative product, or producing something as good but more efficiently. In the real world, it's rarely so cut and dried. Companies go through phases and management changes, and even have different strategies in different market segments.

 

Diebel saved Meade when he returned in the early 90's by investing heavily in R&D, and leapfrogging Celestron with new technology. That broke Celestron out of their complacency, and he aggressively defended his patents when they copied some of Meade's approaches. In turn, Celestron had to be more innovative. We can hope that Orion invests in Meade in ways that will lead the Synta affiliate companies to develop better products as well. 

 

Chip W. 

[Kasmos]

Gee, one company trying to take market share from another, how....awful.

I did say that competiton is good for consumers, but it's about how it's done. If you ever saw how Cave was run (a small mom and pop type of shop) you might see it a bit different and I doubt they ever thought about dominating the hobby.

 

These are just my personal feellings (I did use the term prejiduce), and my take on how things appeared to me.

 

IMO, it's a bit of a reflection of what some economist once said; 

"it used to be about making a living, now it's about making a killing".

[RichA]

I did say that competiton is good for consumers, but it's about how it's done. If you ever saw how Cave was run (a small mom and pop type of shop) you might see it a bit different and I doubt they ever thought about dominating the hobby.

 

These are just my personal feellings (I did use the term prejiduce), and my take on how things appeared to me.

 

IMO, it's a bit of a reflection of what some economist once said; 

"it used to be about making a living, now it's about making a killing".

That was their choice, in-fact Cave did try to compete against the SCT onslaught by running ads comparing their performance, but it wasn't enough to keep people from moving from big 80lbs scopes to small 40lb scopes.

[Bomber Bob]

Tough to be a Cave Fan living east of the Mississippi!  Most of the ads are from California Sellers. 

 

It dawned on me that 3 of my most interesting Old Scopes came from Pennsylvania Sellers:

 

- Mogey 3" Refractor

- Sears 6336 3" Refractor

- Tinsley 6" Cassegrain