Meade DS-114AT


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Meade DS-114AT
Mount was very unstable in azimuth, goto control did not work, finder was a
bad joke. Other optics seemed pretty good for a department store scope.

Overall Rating: 1
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Meade DS-114AT
The optics are ok for a scope of this price range.The .965 eyepieces are basicly junk.Can contact Meade and they will send a 1.25" adapter free of charge.Orion has a starter sirus plossl set (26mm,17mm,10mm)that work real well
for around $120.00.As for the Autostar lets just say your better off without it!
I have got it to go-to an object but it will not track it.Contacted Meade but
they don't have a clue.The motors have alot of play in them and Meade said that
is normal. I don't think so! This would be a great scope if the electronics
worked right.The appeal of this scope was the electronics and in my opinion it
they will be it's downfall.I will rate this a 5 because the optics are good but
only after you get good eyepieces
L.Edwards
(NC)







Overall Rating: 5
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Meade DS-114AT
The DS-114 AT was not as bad as i expected. Once you have some good plossl eyepieces the view you achieve is awsome. THe electronics for me any way worked well.never really had a probably tracking. Most of the peoples problems are in the calibration of the moters. Try recalabrating them. Then dont forget to set your moters to your scope. each scope is diffrent and the moters need to be set to your particular scope. Remember to do this every time. I know its a pain in the *** but it works. And most of all take great care in aligning the scope or it is...well usless. But i am pleased, I've seen some great objects with my 114 AT. THe mount is Ok. I wish it was easier to extend the legs and level, but nothing a little time wont fix. the brightness was great, giving that the atmospheric conditions were stable enough.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Meade DS-114AT
It's darn sad how the mass market (ie, Walmart) demands a high-volume, low price, low-quality scope. The big players like Meade just *have to* supply something in this space because there's too much money at stake, but it sure tarnished their reputation with me.
It's darn sad specifically for this scope because the primary/secondary optics & mounts, tube, and focuser are pretty good on this unit. BUT! Everything else is junk:
- finder is worthless: finder mount is very unstable
- eyepieces are the lowest quality 2 element .965s they could get away with
- 3X plastic barlow is junk
- tripod has the scope boi-oi-oi-oinging all over the place with the slightest touch.
- Autostar... grrrr. Backlash, slop and slippage in the gears is unbelievable. The latter was most frustrating since as soon as the gears slip, the scope needs to be realigned.

1st attempt at calibration / training the motors using a terrestrial object during daylight as recommended by the manual seemed successful, but I found out otherwise that night. It missed alignment stars by 10-15 degrees! On the 3rd night, I recalibrated and trained the motors using Polaris the 12.5mm eyepiece. This was more successful in that targets usually wound up in the finder scope, but nothing *ever* showed up directly on the crosshairs even when using the "sync" function. I found I really had to "crank down" on the azimuth clutch even though the instructions explicitly state only finger tight; otherwise the gears would slip and I'd have to re-align. I also found that with all the cords (4) running into the control base, if you didn't hold them up and out of the way, one would invariably wedge itself in the base/tripod joint while slewing and.. you guessed it: gear slip / realign.

Day 4: Back to Walmart, a sadder but hopefully wiser beginner. My Orion XT6 is in the mail.

Overall Rating: 3
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Meade DS-114AT
Check this out!http://www.geocities.com/zososcope/

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Meade DS-114AT
Check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.geocities.com/zososcope

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Meade DS-114AT
Bought the scope for Christmas. Not to bad for a first scope - glad I didn't get anything smaller. GOTO works O.K. Tracking not all that great. Optics are good - already want a bigger scope, but this one is fun to play with.

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Meade DS-114AT
I Purchased a DS-114AT telescop from Wal-Mart on Friday. My birthday present to myself. Mirror was beautifull. However, all lenses sucked big time and the mount, electronics and tripod are junk. I returned it for a full refund on Sunday. I am disapointed with Meade for ruining the their reputation by putting such trash on the market. I have talked with several people about this telescope and they almost all said the same thing "it's good starter scope for my kids" but, they also said "afetr a couple of times out with it, my kids put it in the closet."

Shame om Meade for ruining astronomy for these kids. I am still looking for a tlelscope for myself and you can bet that it will not be a Meade product.

Sincerely, TJ

Overall Rating: 0
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>I Purchased a DS-114AT telescop from Wal-Mart on Friday. My birthday present to myself. Mirror was beautifull. However, all lenses sucked big time and the mount, electronics and tripod are junk. I returned it for a full refund on Sunday. I am disapointed with Meade for ruining the their reputation by putting such trash on the market. I have talked with several people about this telescope and they almost all said the same thing "it's good starter scope for my kids" but, they also said "afetr a couple of times out with it, my kids put it in the closet."
>
>Shame om Meade for ruining astronomy for these kids. I am still looking for a tlelscope for myself and you can bet that it will not be a Meade product.
>
>Sincerely, TJ

Unfortunate, Meade however does have loads of other models, 

the older ETX90 Mak is now available for just $100 more with amazing optics, solid mount, fun Autostar, nice portable at bowling-ball weight, aprerture slightly low for full resolution, but found nearly all Messier, 

caution some dislike its smaller aperture, I love it,

recently viewed Mars SPC south polar cap in August 2005, even see eliptical shape.. 

comes with two nice eyepices, does have plastic mount but durable, enjoyed looking at Venus at Noon, simply a fun fun scope, lacks resolution for fainter objects, but a good entry level, and rates near number one in grab and go, EXCELLENT..

WARREN .<> ..

Meade DS-114AT
The DS-114AT is a peace of shit! and you can tell thim I sade os.


from R A C

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Meade DS-114AT
I do not quite know how to follow the last users comment but, here goes. I now have a new / used Celestron 8" Star Hopper and it is the best telescope available (for the money), better than I could have imagined possable. The primary and secondary are in pristine condition. Last night, I saw more stars than I could had immagined possable. I do not have an eye piece for it so, I am using the spotter scope lens that came with it. Even with this lens, it far out performed any expections that I had. Also, unlike the Meade AT114 I can actually see usable immages with it.

P.S., Two more people said the same thing to me conserning "beginner" telescopes such as the Mead 114AT. "I bought it for my kid because I wanted to see if he / she was interested". I told them the same thing as I told the others. It is a stopper telescope. I firmly belieave that if you want to squash any intrest in astronomy, go ahead and buy one of these junk telescopes and give it to your kid.

Sincerely

T.J.

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Meade DS-114AT
It's funny the variety of responses to this scope. I bought mine in Australia for the equivalent of US$400.

O.K. Lets look at it objectively...

Optics: Star testing with a CCD camera produces acceptable inter and intra focal patterns - especially for a mass produced Newtonian scope IMHO.

Eyepieces: Toys. No really. These are what I would expect for a product distributed through chain stores. Don't bother - just buy new ones.

Mount Head: Surprisingly solid. The most metal of the package ;) I found acceptable backlash (which can be compensated for with the 497) and quite solid slewing.

Tripod: Yes it's shaky and takes a while to damp down - look at another one if this is unacceptable.

GOTO: Now come on. This is worth the price of the scope alone. On a good quality mount, this performs as well as products from JMI (sorry Jim). I pulled apart the system (like Steve Bedair) and made my own GOTO mount using this gear and it is FANTASTIC. I think from the other comments on this page, there are good and bad examples - more of a Q.A. issue with Meade.

Overall I think that you shouldn't have to pay for all the replacements (tripod and eyepieces) when you buy a scope, but this is a 'Mom and Dad' scope that is bought for Christmas, not a piece of research equipment. The Autostar WORKS. The optics are better than most for this price and the package is a reasonably complete one.

Not the best, but it's a hard market segment and I don't think Meade really sit nicely in it. That's their only failing.

Overall Rating: 7
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Meade DS-114AT
This is my first scope. I only paid $ 250 (including the Autostar 475). After a couple of weeks, I was able to make the goto and tracking work perfectly. The .96" eyepieces are however not worth anything, but I am upgrading those to 1.25".

Great beginners scope.

Overall Rating: 8
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Meade DS-114AT
I wouldn't know cause this is my first telescope and i know absoulutly nothing about any of this astronomy stuff. I don't know how to set it and focus it and i can't read and comprehend stuff i've never heard about plus i don't follow book instructions very well. I thought it would be a fun christmas present for myself but since i don't know how to focus the lenses or what goes where it isn't much help. I don't know how it rates cause i haven't got it working right yet.

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Meade DS-114AT
I wouldn't know cause this is my first telescope and i know absoulutly nothing about any of this astronomy stuff. I don't know how to set it and focus it and i can't read and comprehend stuff i've never heard about plus i don't follow book instructions very well. I thought it would be a fun christmas present for myself but since i don't know how to focus the lenses or what goes where it isn't much help. I don't know how it rates cause i haven't got it working right yet.

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Meade DS-114AT
This scope has been both a JOY and a disapointment. The views afforded by this scope are remarkable. The optics, as far as I can tell are great. The .965 EPs though are junk, I replaced them with inexpensive Orion Explorer II 10, 17, 25mm EPs, and a free meade 1.25 adapter, and a shorty Barlow, and what a difference. The Goto did give me problems at first. Turns out that a Motor mod fixed that, Then I found that meade would send new motor for free. They came, and with the latest Autostar code loaded, my 114 is rock solid in goto and tracking. My biggest compliant it vibration at high powers, above x100, while tracking. This is easy to solve, stop tracking. The scope keeps up with every thing and does not lose its place when restarted. All in all a great scope for the money.

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Meade DS-114AT
we have meade ds-114 at, is there any way we can receive the 1.25" adapter from your company as i read the 1.25" adapter would be sent would be sent free of charge to offset the .965. If so I would like it sent to Barbara Burghduff at 9119 overlook drive rome city, indiana 46784. as i purchased the digitalpolaris ds-114 last week. Thank You.

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Meade DS-114AT
I was very dissapointed in this scope. The salesman who sold it to us at Discovery wouldn't answer any of our questions, and wouldn't even go back to check on the manual. We bought it on impulse after he had carted it out before we decided. I was supposed to get it for christmas, but I convinced my parents to let me take it on the trip, because we were going to a fairly dark sky area. The tripod's locking device wouldn't work either, and if you keep your eyepieces in plastic cases, they don't fit on the tray. I took the thing out that night, after assembling it, and the thing wouldn't slew in altitude. I tried retraining the drive motors, testing motors, remounting to take some weight off of the back, and then I finally just gave up. I gave it a one because it only did 1 astronomy related task, slewing in azimuth. On the plus side though, my brother had lots of fun playing with the box it came in, and the finder scope was pretty cool looking at boats, although difficult to use, due to image inversion.

Overall Rating: 1
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Meade DS-114AT
good price, easy intructions

Overall Rating: 8
Optics:7 Mount:8 Ease of Use:8 Value:10
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Meade DS-114AT
[webmaster note: This vote was moved from the product description]

The primary and secondary mirrors were OK for a scope this size. Surprisingly,
the .965 MH 25mm and 2.5mm and the R4mm were pretty good also. I frankly did
not think that a 2.5mm ep would be any use at all, but it was pretty good for
lunar observation at high magnification. Though the FOV was small on the 4mm
and 2.5 mm EP's, I think this was a plus, since you want to see a small object
or area when using high magnification, not a lot of surrounding sky. If the mount and go-to had been OK I would have loved it. But the finder was useless with the tremendous chromatic
aberration from the plastic lens, and the large amount of play in the altitude
axis (several degrees!!). The go-to would not stay aligned for even a few seconds. I suspect it was the old, buggy, software version.

Unlike the Meade DS-114 ES, this scope has a black tube.

Finder and mount problems caused me to rate this scope a 1 in spite of the
fairly good optics of the primary, secondary, and eyepieces.

Overall Rating: 1
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Meade DS-114AT
Carted this massive sucker with me on vacation. I spent about an hour assembling it. Went outside, azimuth motor wouldn't work. I trained drives and checked for problems as well as rebalancing the tube. Nothing worked. Can't tell you about the quality of the optics or the mount as I couldn't use it. My only enjoyment came from using its finder to look at boats.

Overall Rating: 1
Ease of Use:2 Value:0
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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