Meade 4500 4.5"

4.0 Good beginners scope!

Decently made for a beginners scope; Good optics

A better focuser would well be worth considering

When I obtained my Meade 4500 4.5" f/8 Newtonian telescope, it was well used. It had definitely seen better days, but was still in pretty good shape. As long as it functioned OK, I would be satisfied, as I primarily wanted to use this scope for public outreach events.

It definitely needed some cleaning, and it needed lots of adjusting and alignment. The mirrors were in excellent shape, just a bit dusty. I blew the dust off the secondary with dry air, but I pulled the primary mirror and gave it a good (but very careful) cleaning in distilled water. After drying, everything was reassembled and aligned. I then proceeded to check out the optics on terrestrial objects. Everything seemed to function OK, but the focuser could definitely use a little cleaning and adjustment. So I dismantled the focuser (which is made of plastic), and cleaned it thoroughly. I relubricated it with white lithium grease and carefully adjusted the tension on the rack and pinion movement. After this, it was quite smooth.

Next, I turned my attention to the tripod and mount. The mount is basically an EQ-2. It is maybe a little heavier than some EQ-2s I've seen, but it's definitely not equal to an EQ-3. Actually the machining was quite reasonable and the adjustments were not too far off. A small amount of wear in the gears was noticeable, but not excessive. I proceeded to dismantle the mount, cleaned all the parts, relubricated everything again with white lithium grease and reassembled it. I carefully adjusted all movements as well as possible and was able to eliminate almost all excess play and backlash in both axes. Sure, it's not the greatest mount out there, but it was originally intended as a beginners scope. The tripod is the usually light weight aluminum one found on most all of these beginners scopes. I just made sure that everything was well tightened and secure.

On testing, I was pleasantly surprised. It gives quite good images of the Moon and planets. It also performs quite well on a number of deep sky objects. While I don't think it comes anywhere close to the performance of my 100mm refractor or my 4" Mak/Cass, it is still a good solid performer. But then, it was supposed to be a beginners scope and was far less expensive that the other two.

This would be a very good scope for a beginner that wants to learn all about adjusting and using a Newtonian telescope on a German equatorial mount, and will still give lots of enjoyment out of it use!