This is unsurprising to me. Back in the day Meade was prone to turning out parts that had non-standard threads or at least made thread choices that were different from the competition.
Greg N
Decades ago when these companies were making burgeoning "consumer-friendly" astro equipment, it was probably a mess until there was a mutual agreement to follow standards. This situation is reminiscent of the yesteryears and how much time the end users had to find bits and pieces of what worked or didn't.
It's a reminder like this that we've come a ways into newer technologies today, however a less bit stressful for us that manufacturing are designing their products with standards in mind.
The research burn time used to find the solution allowed me to see there are other innovative products are out there and it didn't happen unless I had a specific need.
I'll admit it was a frustrating exercise at first, but with a different perspective I was able to relook at the situation of finding a positive that I'm discovering new aspects of this hobby that I wouldn't have known about.
The other posters and their input showed to me to appreciate the long-timers here who probably were pulling out their hair to figure this out long before I started.