Are Meade a good manufacturer of telescopes?
Meade manufactures only a very small percentage of the telescopes they sell: primarily their Cassegrains. The vast majority of their scopes are manufactured in China. The same is true for Celestron. Orion manufactures _none_ of the telescopes they sell. Such is the way the telescope industry is today. I tend to prefer Orion because their specifications tend to be at a higher level, so their Chinese-made telescopes are better than Meade’s and Celestron’s Chinese-made telescopes. I currently own 11 telescopes, including refractors, reflectors, two Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrains, and an Orion Maksutov-Newtonian. All are good telescopes with particular strengths and weaknesses. The best are in the $3000 to $4000 price range. I wouldn’t recommend any of the Meade DS series. Your best buy will be a Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount from Orion or SkyWatcher, 6″ to 10″ aperture. Here are a few web pages with good information on beginner’s telescopes:
