Newbie asks help

[seshoumaru]

I want to buy a telescope but ¿which brand is the best, meade, celestron or orion? and I am looking information about the quality of a telescope brand named "Quasar", it seems to be manufactured by a spanish company thats makes lenses and eyepieces for orion and Meade ¿has anyone heard of this brand?

[Lomitus]

Hi seshoumaru,
Well, just from my own experience, I prefer Orion. I had a smaller Meade and after 6 months of headaches, a useless scope and very rude customer service issues, I was finally able to get a refund on it. The scope itself ended up with a bent tripod leg, broken battery clip, the Autostar wouldn't align, let alone track correctly, problems with the view finder, the scope would -not- stay collimated, etc., etc....basically it was a $400 piece of junk. On a number of occasions I had tried to contact Meade in regards to these issues and was placed on hold indefinatly until I simply left a message (none of which were ever returned!) When I found an email contact for the VP of N. American sales, I sent him a complaint about the issues I was having and also reffered him to several other links where other people had been complaining about their customer service issues as I had...I honestly was trying to be helpful to them and was trying to point out that their customer service department had some serious issues. After 3 weeks I finally got a response back that was very rude and condisending...the person who wrote me back clearly didn't even bother to read my entire email! In a nut shell they simply told me that I was opinionated (which granted I am, but this isn't the way to treat a customer who is having multiple problems with a product!) and in so many words called me an idiot. They did finally offer to replace the bent tripod leg....-after- I had told them I already replaced it at my own cost when I couldn't get ahold of them! It was only after I had contacted the store I bought it from...-and- started to warn the stores Ebay customers about issues I had had (there were a number of issues with the store itself and the salesmen who sold me the scope, as well as with Meade), I finally got a response that offered to refund my purchase. It was really an ugly nightmare all the way around.


I know there are many other people who have Meade products who love them, but I honestly could not recommend them to anyone based on my own experience. If you look around on the web, you'll see -many- people such as myself who've had problems with Meade products and expecially their customer service. In fact I've even spoke with a few people who like the scope they got, but when there was an issue, they recieved the same treatment as I had with Meades customer service. Many people have since told me that basically if you purchase something from Meade and you have a problem, your pretty much on your own. I've also heard a number of comments such as Meade makes fine optics, but they -really- skimp on the nuts and bolts...and again from my experience, it's quite true. Again, I know there are many people who like Meade, but I had a -very- bad experience with their products and service and they will simply never get another dime of my money.

In contrast, I have one of the Orion Apex/StarMax 127mm Maksutov-Cassagrain's and I -love- it! First off, the quality of this scope compaired to the Meade is simply first rate! Even the accessories, such as the 25mm Sirius plossl that came with it is very superiour to the RA25mm that came with the Meade. Just as importantly, the people at Orion were -very- kind and helpful. I only had one issue with the scope...the collimation was slightly out when I recieved the scope (probably from being shipped from CA to OH) and there were no instructions on how to set it in the manual. I contacted Orion and they had the instructions in PDF format in my email within 8 hours! BTW, I tweaked the collimation that first night after I got the instructions and haven't had to touch it since! I also purchased a set of mounting rings for the same scope from Orion and again the product and the service has been simply first rate! In addition, when before I bought my Orion Mak, I looked around on the web for comments and reviews (didn't want to get burned again like I did with the Meade) and I didn't see any complaints about Orion the way I had with Meade! I can honestly and wholeheartedly recommend Orion scopes and products to anyone getting started with Astronomy! :D

My dealings with Celestron have been favourable as well. I've looked thru a number of their scopes now and they have all been pretty good quality. I also called them once trying to get some info on a project I was working on and they were friendly and helpful too. I would say between Orion and Celestron, it would really depend on what your looking for. If your in the market for something like a Schmidt-Cassagrain, then I'd go with Celestron (if for no other reason then Orion doesn't make Schmidts), but if your looking for a Dob, a refractor or a mak, then personally, I would go with Orion.

As far as Quasar goes, I -think- I've seen them advertised in one of the astronomy mags (may have even been something I saw in passing on the internet), but I honestly don't know anything about them at all. I've never seen one at a star party or anything so I would honestly have to leave that up to others to give you an opinion either way.

I hope this helps!
Bright Blessings & Gentle Breezes,
Jim

[seshoumaru]

Thaks for your advice, it helps me to choose a good scope.

[Dave Mitsky]

Originally posted by seshoumaru@Aug 19 2004, 01:46 PM
I want to buy a telescope but ¿which brand is the best, meade, celestron or orion? and  I am looking information about the quality of a telescope brand named "Quasar", it seems to be manufactured by a spanish company thats makes lenses and eyepieces for orion and Meade ¿has anyone heard of this brand?
"Quasar" is but one of the names that Meade uses or has used for its Chinese-made small aperture reflectors and refractors. Other such names in the Meade line include "Infinity", "Polaris", and "Saturn". These models are typically what are known as department store telescopes or, more disparagingly, trash scopes.

All of the eyepieces that Meade sells originate from Asia. Meade manufactures its Schmidt-Cassegrains in the United States, although I've heard that they are planning to move production to Mexico as so many other American companies have. Isn't NAFTA wonderful?

Orion Telescopes and Binoculars is merely a vendor. It does not manufacture anything. At one time Orion sold products from Celestron, Vixen, Tele Vue, and other manufacturers. They also marketed rebadged Japanese refractors from Vixen that were quite respectable. Now practically everything in the Orion inventory including their refractors, Newtonians, and Maksutov-Cassegrains comes from China, primarily, or possibly entirely, from a company known as Synta. Communist capitalism, what a concept! (The Orion Dobsonian reflectors were originally made by the folks who became Discovery Telescopes and then by Guan Sheng, a Taiwanese company.) Orion is known for its good customer service but that, and its constant stream of catalogs, ultimately means higher prices for their products. This expense has perhaps been ameliorated somewhat in recent years by the very low cost of Chinese labor.

For the benefit of those who are unaware, the telescope "industry" is really very small in terms of both world sales and the number of the nations involved in production, which include China, Germany, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, the USA, and a few others. It is often the case, in particular with eyepieces, that a single optical shop or factory supplies the same product to many different vendors who simply rebadge it and sell it under their logo. As I point out in my chapter on the Orion ShortTube 80 achromat in the book _Astronomy With Small Telescopes_ , the ubiquitous Synta 80mm f/5 short-tube refractor, a Chinese clone of a Vixen instrument, is sold under many different names in many countries. Meade, which started out as a garage business as did Orion and which at one time was in danger of being bought out by Celestron, is the world's largest telescope manufacturer but in the early part of this decade had sales only in the $20 million range and most of those sales were of bottom-end, impulse-purchase trash scopes, not LX200 GPS SCTs. Here's another example: Bresser Optik, which was acquired by Meade in 1999, is one of the largest distributors of binoculars in the world and one of the largest distributors of telescopes in Europe. In 1998 Bresser had sales of a mere $25 million. Since Meade is the leader in sales, it naturally follows there will be more defective Meade telescopes than other brands but in my experience it seems that Meade's quality control is often lacking, even with their expensive, high-end scopes.

Keep in mind that there are no consumer protection laws covering telescopes in the United States so manufacturers and vendors can, and frequently do, make all sorts of outrageous claims, ones that most of their customers aren't equipped to evaluate. The now defunct Tasco, which once owned Celestron, was infamous for using this shady sales ploy.

The bottom line is, as Phil Harrington puts it, caveat emptor.

You may want to have a look at these web sites before making a decision:

Discovery Telescopes - http://www.discovery-telescopes.com/

Guan Sheng - http://www.gs-telescope.com/

Hardin Optical - http://www.hardin-optical.com/

Stargazer Steve Telescopes - http://stargazer.isys.ca/


Dave Mitsky


* From the CBS Market Watch web site:

9:50am 04/19/01 Meade Instruments warns about Q1 (MEAD) By Michael Baron

Meade Instruments (MEAD) is off 51 cents, or 12.6 percent, to $3.54, after the Irvine, Calif., maker of optical astronomy products reported a fourth-quarter loss, excluding items, of $4.1 million, or 27 cents a share, down from earnings of $1.3 million, or 8 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Sales rose to $22.1 million in the period from $21.8 million a year earlier. Meade attributed the results to a softening world economy, especially in the U.S., which hurt sales and margins within its core customer base. For fiscal 2001, margins fell to 32.7 percent from 40.2 percent in 2000. The company expects ongoing margin pressure this year, resulting in first-quarter results below the same period a year earlier when it reported a profit of $1.4 million on revenue of $22.8 million. Meade also said it has taken a number of steps, including laying off 20 percent of the employees at its headquarters, to reduce costs due to the difficult market environment.

[antoniseb]

Wow! I had the impression that the telescope industry was small, and mostly off-shore, but I didn't realize it was that extreme. Thanks for the solid synopsis Dave.

[Dave Mitsky]

You're welcome, antoniseb.

Dave Mitsky