Side by Side Comparison of: Meade vs John A Read vs Firefly Books

This telescope is great! A little larger than I thought, but I found a big enough duffle bag to fit it in, and now I can even travel with it. As for the seller: I was amazed. The telescope arrived three days after ordering instead of two weeks. Thank you,
Edie Kasper

Meade Infinity 102mm Refractor Telescope review:
UPDATE June 12, 2016: I've since upgraded and now own this Meade Infinity 102mm Refractor telescope and sold my Meade 90mm Refractor Telescope.
Why Amazon have the reviews all mixed up for the different Meade Infinity series is not nice, especially when I had purchased two different telescope and have to use the same review to either rewrite or add to it is beside me and I think that is not the way it should be.

Anyway I got this Meade 102mm telescope Tuesday 07, June 2016 and it came well packaged, all items intact and am fully satisfied with what I received. It took me less than 10mins to setup and have it ready for use for first light. I also got the Red Dot viewfinder set into the Telescope and did my adjustments, focusing the telescope on an object a few miles away. It took me about 5mins or less to get the Red Dot viewfinder perfectly aligned. I then looked at Saturn to see if the Red Dot viewfinder was perfectly aligned and all was OK.
I then took out my Meade 90mm Telescope to compare the difference in viewing, using on both of them the same eyepieces. I selected the 26mm eyepieces, seeing I now have 2 eyepieces of the same from both telescopes.
I placed both telescopes side by side and set it upon Saturn. I elected Saturn seeing its the smallest and easily seen planet at the moment, that way I can actually see how well both will display Saturn. Looking at Saturn from both telescopes have shown me quite a difference.
Lets consider the 90mm; when you look at Saturn you definitely see it but much smaller and can make out the ring around Saturn but not the Cassini band and i.e. bare in mind using the 26mm eyepiece.
Looking through the 102mm using the same 26mm eyepiece at Saturn brings the planet a little closer to your eyes and have a clearer and brighter view also you have a very marginal wider field of view but not much to make a fair comparison with the 90mm. I did not see the Cassini band using the 26mm eyepiece on the 102mm Telescope.

The next day I took them out and decided to look at a communication tower located several miles away in the horizon and when I looked through using the same 26mm eyepieces you definitely have a much closer and detailed view of the top of the tower with the 102mm telescope. Whereas the 90mm you have a clear view but its seeing the tower a little further away and don't see too much details but just barely.
In summing up I'd say that the Meade 102mm is much brighter and better viewing enjoyment than the Meade 90mm. All in all I still love both Telescopes but a friend of mine came by and saw the 90mm and asked me to buy it and I sold it. So now I have only the Meade 102mm which I'm enjoying very much.

Meade Infinity 90mm Refractor Telescope review:
This is the first Telescope I've ever owned, and also the very first time I ever looked into a Telescope. Setting up everything was just around ten minutes or less.
I got a small packet of tools, 1 Phillips screwdriver, 1 triangular shaped flat head screwdriver and 2 different size spanner. I did not need to use any of the tools to setup the entire apparatus.
I love the red dot viewfinder and found it very easy to align with the telescope. I aligned it using a distant object in the horizon with the Telescope, centering the eyepiece with the Telescope then taking the red dot viewfinder to align with the red dot. All that I did late in the evening time. I then used it at night and looked at a distant star with the red dot viewfinder then in turn looked at the star through the Telescope and it was perfectly aligned. Amen
The tripod came already assembled in its own box while the Telescope came wrapped in its own box, all items was placed in a bigger box so it looks as one item. As advertised on Amazon I got everything as described and was not disappointed.
As described with the Telescope all is seen completely upright as if you're looking through a binoculars with one eye. For terrestrial use this is ideally suited for me. So up is up, down is down, left is left and right is right.
I will later on look at the planets and star clusters etc to see what more I can see and as much as I can see.
I had a quick look at the Moon and its quite breathtaking seeing the craters of the Moon with so much details.

UPDATE MARCH 19, 2016: I got up this morning approx 1:30 AM and could not go back to sleep and decided to walk out my back step and what did I saw was both Saturn and Mars with the Moon approx 30 degrees (i.e. from the horizon to the Moon) setting at the west. I decided to take my Telescope and view those planets. I was really amazed, it's the first time I've ever seen Saturn & its rings using all the different eyepieces. I also had a good long look of Mars and was all excited about my short night events.
A few nights ago I also viewed Jupiter and was amazed with so much details to see the bands on Jupiter and seeing 4 of Jupiter's Moon.

Coming back to the red dot viewfinder; I did some very fine tweaks to it and now its spot on. Once you find the object with the red dot and you look into the Telescope its right on the target.

I know nothing about telescopes. That being said, it was very easy to put together. It took us less than 10 minutes to get the entire thing set up. The dvd took a while for me to get it to work because it didn't run on my laptop. Thank goodness we had an older desktop that would run the disc. Overall, I think this is a great starter for you future astronomy student. The telescope is good to use during the daytime as well, so you can look at the wildlife around your home. With the Astronomy with a Home Telescope, I was able to start going in the right direction with this telescope. We have enjoyed trying it out as a family. It is a great way for us to spend more time together and we're all for it.

I received this telescope for review purposes, all thoughts are my own.

Awesome telescope. I tracked Venus, Jupiter and its moons, and the Orion Nebula within an hour of first opening the box. One knob was bent, but Meade replaced it with little effort.

I read many reviews for various telescopes in this price range before choosing this one. In the end I chose this for the following reasons:

1. The specifications of the scope. 90mm is the largest refractor scope in this price range.
2. The image is not reversed or upside-down. This means daytime terrestrial viewing is possible.
3. The mount is not a typical alt-azimuth. It has fine tuning knobs so you can track during celestial viewing.
4. This scope came with 3 eyepieces and a 2x Barlow lens. It also has a red dot view finder.

I was very skeptical due to the lack of reviews but it came with everything I wanted as a first time buyer. It arrived professionally packaged and with all the pieces. It was simple to assemble and I was outside calibrating the view finder within about 10 minutes. The moon is amazing, especially when less than half full. I can see Jupiter with 4 of its moons and if focused properly I can see the two major bands across its surface. To see Jupiter clearly I found the best method is to choose your eyepiece, focus it using the surface of the moon, and then use the view finder to target the planet.

The only thing I think this telescope could benefit from is a finer focus knob. It is however adequate if you are patient or use the method I mentioned above. I am attaching a photo of the moon I took my first day of use. I took the picture using my phone by just holding it up to the eyepiece so it is not crystal clear. The image you see through the eyepiece is very clear. I hope this helps others who are considering this purchase.

We purchased for our 10 year old. I found it some what difficult to put together.

Ordered this for a christmas gift for a 10 yr old came packaged nicely he will love it

This being my first telescope, I was super excited. The telescope works fine, and is a good value for the money. But there are some small things that hold it back. The worst of which is that it wobbles. Once you find something to look at, even something big like the moon, if you let go of the telescope, it wobbles out of position. So basically you either have to compensate for the wobble or continue to hold the scope while looking through the lens. Once you do get it to stay still, there is some super cool stuff to look at. And for the price it's hard to beat.

This is my first telescope and I'm about as noob as noob gets when it comes to Astronomy. That being said, here's my pros and cons on this telescope.

Here's the pros
- Setup's stupid easy, I was fully setup and zeroed with my red dot finder to my scope in roughly 10 minutes. Also comes with an easy to follow instruction manual, it's practically given to you Barney style.
- Well packaged for shipping. Not even a dent on the instruments box and arrived within a couple days.
- It's a Refractor so day time observation's possible.
- Practically no maintenance required. Keep your dust covers on your lenses, take it outside and use. Perfect for beginners.
- Slow motion controls are simple to use and work well.
- On my first night out I was viewing the moon in great detail. Within a couple nights I was viewing Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. (Jupiter is my favorite to view currently) Only reason I didn't view the planets on the first night is because the telescope arrived on a full moon.

Here's the cons
- 90 degree erect-image prism (elbow joint that connects your eye pieces to the scope) is obviously cheaply made. Consider replacing with a better quality piece.
- Hate the accessory tray. In my opinion it's better to not even use and substitute for an old tackle box or something for your eye pieces.
- Eye pieces are average. It wont be long before I invest in upgrades.

That being said...I LOVE this scope. This is the first telescope I've purchased and I'm glad I did. Great instrument to introduce someone into a life long hobby. Very well done. I highly recommend stalking Jupiter, I viewed it for over an hour tonight. :D

Love it. Bought this for my sons 5th birthday. It isn't the best but it is a good first. The mirror doesn't lock in so it can spin freely an get annoying. This could also benefit from a heavier tripod as the lightweight one included has a lot of shake to it which distorts the images.the spotting scope should also be located somewhere else. All in all for a low priced beginner scope this a great deal .

Price equals performance I know. Not great for the money. Part broke, but they sent a new one. Spend more and get a more powerful scope

When I moved to the south end of the island of Hawaii, I took one look at the night sky and decided I had to have a telescope. There are no street lights, so the stars really blaze on a clear, moonless night. I ordered the Infinity 102mm scope.

I was impressed by the quality of the telescope and the tripod. I'm new to telescopes, so I couldn't judge the quality of the optics. I had a minor problem with the elevation cable requiring what seemed like too much force to raise the telescope, but I could cope with that. What did me in and made me return the device was the design of the red dot finder. The telescope had a right-angle eyepiece--an obvious necessity for viewing celestial objects much above the horizon--but the finder did not. If my neck was a lot more flexible than it is, I might have been able to contort myself to look through the finder. As it was, I couldn't find anything.

I'm not sure what the rationale was behind this arrangement. What if you want to view something overhead? There evidently are right angle finders available for an additional cost, but I wasn't in the mood to pay more, so back it went.

Decent for the money don't expect much from it. Great for kids or beginners like me. Only issues I have with it is the finders scope is out of wack upside down blurry just throw it away. And the scope itself is shaky you'll have a hard time getting it to steady you'll have to look through it without holding onto it or it continuesly shakes bad.

Was able to see the moon craters clearly. Struggled a little with the spotter adjustment. The major drawback is that the support attachment screw to the scope does not tighten fully and it is hard to get rid of small vibrations. If it is only the slightest wind outside it is not possible to use.

Well I'll give this three stars, its sturdy telescope, definitely not a toy, but the only downside is I believe I got a defective one because I followed the instructions in putting it together and when I put the lenses in it I couldn't see anything looking out through the lenses.

It's very hard to focus. We've tried several times to align it per instructions and haven't been successful yet. It's disappointing for our son whose been very excited to use this telescope.

I returned this telescope. I couldn't find the planets. I think I need to buy a more expensive one. I could find the moon. It work well, I want one that has a digital remote with it. It is a great beginner scope.

Too many plastic parts. I couldn't get the spotting scope aligned, & the instructions are inadequate, in my opinion.

Worked great. Then all the sudden it wasn't lined up with the front and rear lenses. Also not great for astrophotography with a Nikon or webcam.

after spending hours on trying to get it put together and to get it to focus in, which it doesn't work right if the L shape eye piece is in, my daughter went to take it outside to use it for the first time and the screw that connects to the scope to the stand came off so we had to find a replacement screw

I could not get the telescope to focus. Will never buy again

Honestly cannot figure out how to see anything with this. I am an amateur, but really I can't ever find anything and when I do it isnt the quality I seen in pics in the reviews posted.

The instruction DVD wasn't helpful at all as it showed how to set up a telescope that wasn't even for the one we bought. Either that or the one we bought came without several pieces.
We purchased this 1yr ago and have never figured out how to use it, even after trying to gooey different instructions than what it came with.
We were able to use it to look at a distance about 1 block away but the i.age was very blurry no matter how much adjusting we did.

Unable to see stars and planets as expected.

Wow, you couldn't ask for a worse experience with Amazon.com and Meade Instruments. I bought it for my daughter for her birthday. I wrapped it up when received very quickly and presented it to her on her birthday. Only we found upon opening it up that the tripod leg came already broken, the tripod was covered in blue marker as if it was already used, it was missing 1 of the extra eyepieces, it was missing some screws to stabilize it in one place, the instructions were not in the package, the instructional DVD was missing, and the cost to ship it back is more than what they will give me in return.