Meade Instruments Corporation (aka Meade) is a multinational company headquartered in Irvine, California, that manufactures, imports, and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, CCD cameras and telescope accessories for the consumer market. It is the world's largest manufacturer of telescopes. Besides selling under its "Meade" brand name, the company sells solar telescopes under the Coronado name. Its products are also imported and sold in Europe by a former subsidiary under the Meade and Coronado brand names
A 40 cm Meade LX200 in the York University Observatory
Meade manufactured its products formerly in Irvine, California, and currently in an expanded plant in Tijuana, Mexico.Products produced by Meade include
ACF (Advanced Coma-Free) is an altered version of the Meade's previous schmidt-cassegrain telescopes that substitutes the tradition spherical schmidt-cassegrain secondary mirror with a hyperbolic secondary. In the new design the full aperture corrector is slightly altered in shape and combined with a spherical primary mirror. Meade's literature originally describe their ACF as a variation on the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, although it does not use the two hyperbolic mirror combination in that design (being more of an aplantic design). After a legal settlement Meade dropped the claim.
Models
- LX90-ACF, 8" to 12"
- LX200-ACF, a series of LX200 with ACF Optics 8" to 16"
- LX400-ACF, 16 to 20" f/8, w/ robotic equatorial mount
The Meade "ETX" series Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope (105mm aperture).
Meade currently produces a line of Maksutov telescopes under their ETX series (Everybody's Telescope). They were first produced in 90 mm (3-1/2") Maksutov Cassegrain telescope in 1996. They range in size from 90 mm to 125 mm.
- Schmidt-Newtonian telescopes (6 to 10 inches).
- LightBridge Dobsonian telescopes (currently 8, 10, 12 and a 16-inch model)
Many Meade telescope lines are classified by the self aiming computerized alt-azimuth and equatorial mounts they come on, a technology commonly called a "GoTo" mount.
models
- LXD75, including Newtonian, Schmidt-Newtonian, Advanced Coma-Free, and achromatic refractor telescopes
- ETX-LS, a 150mm (6 in) F/10 ACF telescope on a single-fork arm.
- DS-2000 Series, 80mm (3.1") refractor, 114mm (4.5") and 130mm (5.1") reflector on altazimuth Goto mounts
In 2004, Meade acquired Coronado Filters from founder and designer David Lunt, who produce an extensive range of specialty telescopes that allow views of the sun in Hydrogen-Alpha, and formerly, at Calcium K line wavelengths. The Meade Coronado telescopes are called "Solarmax 40" or higher depending on the model.
Coronado Personal Solar Telescope
- Achromatic Refractors (5 and 6-inch)
- Meade also sells under the "Meade" name imported low to moderate cost reflectors and refractors intended for the beginner retail market.
Accessories produced by Meade include the series 5000 eyepieces that are comparable in construction to those of Chester, New York-based Tele VueOptical's "Nagler" (82-degree field of view), "Panoptic" (68-degree field of view), and "Radian" (60-degree field of view) eyepieces. Meade sells Deep Sky and Lunar digital imagers for telescopes. They also market the mySKY & mySKY Plus, multi-media GPS devices guiding users to the sky, similar to the competing Celestron SkyScout.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia