Meade, Orion & Coronado Fire Staff & Close Offices

[@jongroubert4203]

So, I'm not sure what you're referring to about the transfer of $8 million from Celestron to Meade, and I'm curious about where you saw that. But you've got the rest of it a little bit wrong. Allow me to clarify. Yes, Orion won a $50 million verdict against Meade in the anti-trust lawsuit. But as this ex-lawyer can tell you, that's meaningless until and unless Orion could reduce that verdict to a judgment, and enter that in the form of a judgment against Meade. It's a little legal nicety, a bit of paperwork that has to be done, in order to be able to enforce the judgment and collect the money. The judge has to "convert" the verdict into an enforceable judgment, which the winner of the case then has to file with the Clerk of the Court. If that sounds dumb, well . . . Before Orion could enter the judgment, Meade filed for bankruptcy. Welp, that bankruptcy filing stopped the entry of the judgment against them, stopped that $50 million cold. Orion collected exactly ZERO of that $50 million. Because Meade filed for bankruptcy so immediately - within 24 hours of the verdict in the lawsuit - Meade had to have had that paperwork all prepared, all ready to go, knowing that the verdict was going against them. Now, why would Meade have known that? Because it was impossible for that verdict to go any other way. If you read the court filings, including and especially the emails that Meade and Celestron were exchanging, you knew that Orion had Meade absolutely dead to rights. Celestron and Meade were ABSOLUTELY colluding to squeeze Orion out of the market. Indeed, I could never figure out why Meade ever even contested the case and brought it all the way to trial in the first place when the evidence was so very clearly against them. The emails were a smoking gun, which made Orion's case an easy slam dunk. Celestron was equally implicated in these emails, collusion to fix the market against Orion, but Celestron settled Orion's case against them, and Meade didn't. That never made any sense to me. I'm guessing that Orion took the money that Celestron gave Orion to settle, and used that - in whole or in part - to buy Meade in its bankrupt state. I remember a number of $5 million for them to do that - which I always found to be shockingly low. For that, Orion got the Meade/Coronado name, all of their spare parts, all of their physical stock of scopes/eyepieces, etc., that factory in Mexico, and also Meade/Coronado's intellectual property = patents on optics and telescope/eyepiece designs and such. What you may not be aware of is that there was a "Collusion II" lawsuit. Yup, Celestron, seemingly unsatisfied at not being able to force Orion out of the market with the tactics they used in the first lawsuit, tried it again. Orion sued again. Looking at what happened, it looks like Celestron was more successful the second time around. Someone will buy Meade/Coronado/Orion again, if only for the intellectual property and that Mexico factory. I'm hoping Explore Scientific does it, because ES was founded by some ex-Meade people, and then ES could replace Meade/Orion as number 2 in the telescope wars.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yeh I know there was some kind of payment to Orion and then the bankruptcy , I just couldn’t recall the exact amount. Thanks for the legal exegesis! It’s good to hear someone else was reading those filings too. It’s crazy to read huh? Seeing the emails are wild. And you’re right the IP can still be transferred but it’s losing value and relevancy with every day that passes.

[@jongroubert4203]

@@DylanODonnell Eh, not so much. There's still value in SCTs, in H-alpha scopes that hasn't gone away yet. A lot of telescope tech doesn't really change that quickly. But yeah, it sure was a kick reading all of those legal filings about companies that are so near and dear to us.

[@garyb6219]

Thanks, you just saved me 9 minutes of video and it looks like your explanation was better. Hat's off to you for writing all that up!

[@robcat2075]

"...I could never figure out why Meade ever even contested the case and brought it all the way to trial in the first place when the evidence was so very clearly against them." Just a guess... a lawyer, who saw a chance to bill some hours, told them they had a case.

[@wooddogg8]

@@robcat2075 Nailed it!!🔨... Most likely

[@davidtotten3042]

If you were an astronomy nerd in the ‘70’s you absolutely knew the Mead catalogue. How many hours I obsessed over getting one of there scopes. Finally got one (first “major” purchase of my life) and the electronics were crap. A friend loaned me his Celestron and that saved my love for amateur astronomy. Not because it was better, but because it just worked. Still, it’s sad to see them go.

[@markwiygul6356]

I got a Tasco 520X refractor in the mid 80s, for Christmas, from Santa, (and I believe he and Mom shopped for it at Sears). That instrument was my most used telescope and discovery ever . . . despite eventually graduating to other refractors, reflectors, and the biggest being a 10" Orion Intelliscope Dobsonian

[@Starphot]

I bought the DS-10 10" Newtonian with the astrophoto upgrade in 1984. Yes, the electronics were very basic and the drive corrector overheated the RA motor one night causing a gear in the motor housing to strip. I redone the electronics to a proper and more stable operation as my career was in electronics. Just about everything from the original except the optical train was replaced over the decades. I still use it to this day for astrophotography.

[@Rich-hy2ey]

Kind of. Prior to 1980, there were no SCT telescopes from Meade, just equatorially-mounted Newtonian reflectors and imported refractors and accessories. Celestron dominated the 1970s for SCT telescopes as they had a monopoly.

[@mattc2674]

From my own experience I’m not surprised Orion is closing. Back in 2016 i bought a used Orion Atlas Pro mount head on eBay. No tripod. Of course i understand you don’t get a warranty or support with a second hand item. When i reached out to Orion to inquire about the possibility of purchasing just the tripod, they told me no and hung up within 10 second of me explaining i bought it second hand. So i called Skywatcher since they sell the same mount under their brand as the AZ-EQ6 expecting similar result, but you know what? They were SUPER nice and hooked me up with a non standard tripod purchase knowing it was for a customer who bought a used *Orion* product. If that wasn’t enough: two years later when the main board died, i called Orion to see if they would *sell* me the board- same deal: “no you didn’t buy new. Ok bye”. You know who did come to the rescue selling me a new main board? Skywatcher! I probably spent $6000 on Astro products after that initial call to Orion. Because of the difference in the way they dealt compared to Skywatcher, I didn’t spend a single dollar on their store. Not surprised they’re closing shop.

[@penteractgaming]

Its illegal to refuse to sell components like that.

[@kerryedavis]

I had a similar experience with Gateway Computers in the past. They wouldn't even sell me a replacement KEYBOARD since I wasn't the original purchaser of the computer.

[@Spike1967]

That was NOT how I ran the call center back in the 90s. Were we perfect, no. But I made a concerted effort to help all astronomy community members. Help get folks into the right scope, support after the sale, host star parties to foster interest. It changed when consultants got involved and it went from a "family" operation to one where the bottom line drove everything. Still, sad to see what was a huge part of my younger self shutter it's doors.

[@noway8233]

Iligal? Do yuo.known Apple😅?​@@penteractgaming

[@bk3720]

Considering how these companies changed, good riddance. But a sad day. My impression of Orion back in the early 2000s was good, got an xt8 dob, no quality issues. Meade became "meadiocre" selling so many cheap junky scopes over the years. Orion's product line also went downhill. One of the problems with these brands was reselling othet brands junk.

[@RobertKarlBerta]

I am 77 years old and have been in astronomy since I was 8 years old.... so have gone through a lot of gear in that time. I am a big fan of Celestron having owned a couple of 8" SCTs including one of the old orange tube models. My first scope was a Tasco 60mm refractor that my mom bought me for my 8 year old birthday. That scope and mount is still in use by one of my sisters grand daughters. I have a couple of 11" SCT Celestron scopes... one on fork mount and one that goes on one of my AP German mounts in my observatory. Both are used with Hyperstar setups. I also have a 8" SCT HD with Hyperstar on a AM-5 mount as my travel setup. I have a couple of Ha scopes.... one is a Lunt and the other a 25 year old Coronado (US manufactured). Both work fine but I am worried about the Coronado and access to parts. I also designed and am the manager of an observatory in a Scout camp. It is a large roll off roof building with a 14" Celestron HD scope for visual and also with Hyperstar on a CG PRO German mount. When I was making the decision of which scope to go with I had heavy pressure to go with the Meade but since I have good relationships with people at Corporate Celestron I went with that brand. Now I am so happy I made that decision after all the bad news about Meade. There have been a lot of other astronomy companies that fell by the wayside through the years. Hopefully we won't lose more.

[@BobJohnsonSince1970]

I think maybe your autofocus was being thrown off by that animated head in the frame on the wall above your monitor...

[@DylanODonnell]

It was haha

[@WeatherWars]

It was the black/white contrast of the screen to his left. Autofocus works! Bought a 10" LX200 in late 1993, and had two chips with data for 747 objects. The thing just worked, night after night, year after year, and there were years that it lived outside under a tarp ( '01-'07) in Idaho and Colorado. Long live Meade!

[@randydewees7338]

I figured it was a normal nervous habit of continuously refocusing, like at the telescope eyepiece.

[@peterwoolliams1283]

Meade didn’t diversify beyond alt-az SCT fast enough. We are blessed with choice now. My only worry is Coronado, but then we have Lunt.

[@unfit2ultra]

It was trying to sneak peak us his PixInsight workflow. 😆

[@ronaldogata4401]

I feel Meades problems where: product development, marketing and lack of customer service. I had 10" LX200. It died literally 2 days after the warranty expired. I called their customer support and they wouldn't do anything to help. I was so upset I even wrote a letter to the president of Meade and that time pleading my case. In the letter I warned him of the dangers of not standing by their products. Of course, I never heard back. I vowed to never another Meade product. It's a decision Celestron was very happy with.

[@DylanODonnell]

Wow man

[@Rich-hy2ey]

You can do as you please, I presume 100% of your reaction was based on "how you were treated" because basing it on a fluke where an LX200 (many of which still work today, 30 years later) just happened to have a problem after the warranty expired would be stupid. The electronics in these scopes are not complex, any good electronic service person could fix it, unless it was something like a motherboard or hand control fried from an electric surge or something. The entire telescope economy world-wide is probably less than $200M. I'm surprised they can turn out any sophisticated electronic component that actually works.

[@neggleston]

Started out with the Meade 10" LX200 GPS 20 years ago. Chose it because of the blue colour and dual fork arms though have been running the Celestron 9.25 EdgeHD on an iOptron CEM60 for the past 5 years. Out of the ashes a phoenix will rise.

[@TheVirtualTim]

A sad day. My first scope was a Meade ETX-90. Eventually I would own a Meade 14” LX-200 … I have a lot of fond memories with that scope (I have since sold it). I used to recommending Orion’s 8” Dobs … very affordable and yet a lot of scope for your money. Sad to see it all go.

[@lilithgaither9603]

I've been on travel. This is how the news made it to me. My first scope was a Meade when I was just a kid. Like, the single-digit age kind. My first rig for astrophotography was bought as a gift for my 15th birthday, with many relevant pieces from Orion.

[@jackjennings6143]

I've just finished restoring a 1988 10" Meade LX6, and it has ended up being the most beautiful piece of art I've ever had the privilege of owning. It's a shame that all of these amazing things get eaten up by massive conglomerates and left to rot.

[@bradmuise1327]

welcome to capitalism.....

[@UncleKennysPlace]

All of the telescope companies are _tiny,_ certainly not "massive conglomerates." It's a very niche market.

[@UncleKennysPlace]

@@bradmuise1327 No, that's free market.

[@k.h.1587]

I have a 1991 meade 10" lx premiere, basically an LX6 with an f10 ota. It isn't bad for what it is, but I would much rather have my usa C11 on celestron/losmandy G11. All of my gear was stolen by tweakers most likely living in the storage facility, so they could move it from unit to unit and never get caught on camera, and then truck it out later. I lost way more than just telescope gear Since tweakers are dumb, and don't know what half the stuff is, they didn't take the tripod or counterweights for the g11, since it does not look like a tripod when dissasembled. Yes they took all of my other tripods. The 10" scope, with the original trunk case, dec motor, original 2" diagonal and black plastic meade eyepiece case with 5 japanese super plossls, was a straight trade for the losmandy leftovers and some piggyback rings. Not terribly long after, another friend sold me a powerstar C8 loaded with case, original japanese prism diagonal and 26mm silvertop, full handbox option with focus and dec motors (but missing the mounting hardware for the dec). The price was so low I won't mention. I had a nice usa pre lawsuit meade 8" lx200R ota, on a gm8 initially but I did sell that because I had a manual cg5 with ra drive. I also had tv101, pronto, solarmax 60, stellarvue m3, big binos/manfrotto etc and an extensive eyepiece collection and some sbig, optec and astrodon ccd equipment. Tweakers suck. Talk about a hobby killer. And my 2 scts were cherries. After getting a bunch of lesser stuff used at the beginning of the covid lockdowns before the shortages kicked in and prices going up, I had another run of bad luck losing several scopes, some mounts, and music gear, amps and guitars (storage had probably 30-50x value of music and audio gear as well, these twaznackers scored), effectively stolen by a city in the county I used to live in, via impoundment of my van loaded with gear that they were aware of, and overly long detainment for some bogus stuff that should have been handled differently. I am sure they had a bidder lined up when my van went to auction. It was only an Xt8, 127mak, beat up omni102, really rough early cg5, nexstar GT mount, an old vixen 60mm f15AZ and an assortment of plossls and flat fields and probably some other stuff I am forgetting, but many essentials like all but my 4# counterweights, power tank, and well, the van to haul it all. So I have been grounded for the last 3 years, and I am surprised I am still alive. Fear of the unknown can do that to a person. And I lost my lightbridge 114 that I was going to use on the gt, when the person I lent it too refused to return it... humans Now I have the itch again, but I have to figure something out. I have been mostly using my etx90 and st80 tubes on my one remaining camera tripod, and I set up the c8 once in the small zenith only "courtyard" of the 5 unit building I am in, but that cost me some damage to my 22mm vixen. LVW that got knocked off the flat base of the wedge in front of the drive base where I put eyepieces since that tripod doesn't have an accessory tray. Doh! Barrel dented, no more filters for that guy, and it now rattles. But optically it survived so it could be worse. Why do I make comments like this? Aspergers

[@caviestcaveman8691]

​@@bradmuise1327without it we wouldn't be here lets be real we wouldn't have much lol

[@Tim_the_Astronurd]

I kind of figured they were going down when they started discontinuing all their rebranded skywatcher mounts. then they started removing different scopes from inventory. My first 2 years they were my goto for everything, but I stopped going to the site a couple years ago when the stuff I liked started disappearing from the website

[@DylanODonnell]

Interesting

[@stevenemert837]

The loaner scope coordinator in our club noticed a couple of years ago that Orion started dropping items he needed for maintenance. Red dot finders, certain eyepieces, replacement dovetails, planispheres and star charts, red flashlights, etc. Also, the club usually gives a 8" or 6" Dob as a raffle prize at one of our major events. We couldn't even get an Orion Dob this year. Now it is making some sense.

[@alansheiness8148]

Very fair perspective. I am one of the people who started Meade, stayed Meade. Although that has only meant a small 291 refractor in the early 80s, an 8" LX-3 c1985 that is still in service (optics changed out from pitted silvered to an ACF system in 2021), and my current pier-mounted 14" ACF LX850. I also own a Celestron C5 mounted on an EQ-G as a very portable setup that came along somewhere in between. My Starlock unit met with disaster in May, and thank goodness I declined to send it in along with the mount's control unit, which is what they requested-- that I send the pair in as a set. I shudder to imagine if my mount's brains got caught in the shutdown. As it is, I've mounted an 82mm f/6.45 Skywatcher as a guidescope and it works well in combination with ASIAIR Plus.

[@johntaylor8835]

My wife bought me my Meade 10” in 1992. Well made. Great optics. Still using it. I have a beautiful wife!

[@Tugela60]

Ok, so you are talking about the wife. What about the telescope?

[@jsimmonstx]

If she's your wife, you probably don't have to watch her through the telescope now... :)

[@fredmercury1314]

The problem with making telescopes is the limited market and the fact that they don't just stop working, like a fridge.

[@DylanODonnell]

Agree.. the innovation has to be in the mount and the software.

[@UncleKennysPlace]

Yep. I have a 6" Cave Astrola (vintage!), a 10" Meade Newtonian, and a 7" Meade Maksutov, and a Losmandy GM mount. I don't need any more, and most of my stuff is 20+ years old. Cameras are the only things that change enough to upgrade.

[@joeshmoe7967]

Agree. I still have/use my original Celestron C-8 bought in 1978. Did buy a small Skywatcher to replace using a telephoto for astro photo's, but most ly one and done.

[@GeoffCurreymusic]

Yeah, they have changed the type of glass and made the outer tube with lighter materials, so that is an incentive for some people to upgrade or change, but yeah, if you look after your gear and keep the unused OTA and viewfinders in a protected case, the same OTA is good for so many years it is crazy. My fridge makes a funny noise sometimes, but that's fridge personality, not a technical problem, they are all different :)

[@evertonporter7887]

The basic design of any telescope, be it a refractor, reflector or cat, hasn't changed since their invention. If anything, they have become more refined, especially refractors which now have ED and apochromatic designs. I have a vintage Helios 102mm achromatic refractor and it still gives great views and pinsharp stars. I guess that telescope manufacturers need to innovate in other areas, as well as to provide aftermarket support, such as parts replacement and software updates.

[@damiengalanaud3817]

Sad news but I am not overly surprised. I went to their store in Cupertino in 2019. It was dusty, empty and felt really old. The nice guys working there told me that they did not see many customers every day. The main astro shop in Paris explained to me that they did not buy from them any more because they were too expensive. More generally, in the field of amateur astrophotography gear, there has not been much innovation coming from the USA recently: affordable apos (mainland China and Taiwan), CMOS DSO cooled cameras (Japan and China), strainwawe mounts (Korea), smart telescopes (France), US brands are nowhere to be seen.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yep!

[@ian408]

They never had much to begin with (Cupertino) and then one day, just gone. Signage, everything. There was a store in Santa Cruz that closed up before hand.

[@lmamakos]

I've got a few Astro-Physics telescopes and a mount that were designed and built in the US. A different market segment that what Meade and Celestron mostly sold into.

[@edwardgill1042]

Yeah, all those crappy American products, Losmandy, AstroPhysics, Starizona, Lunt, Stellervue, Planewave, Software Bisque, my local Walmart just won't stoop to carry all that cheap American made junk .

[@texasastro9271]

Awesome video, miss the good old days of Meade vs Celestron. And I always knew whatever adaptor or mirror or whatever I needed Orion would have. Hope someone can buy it and do great things with them!

[@richardwarren7492]

Started with a Gilbert 3" reflector in 1963, moved up to a 4" reflector in 1975 from Optica BC in the SF bay area, in 1977 bought a Meade 8" reflector, loved it, 1980 bought a Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain and built a roll of top observatory, used it for many years, sold it in 2013. Knew John Diebel, and a friend of his personally. Orion was just over the hill from where I lived and worked. Hopefully the Meade story isn't over. Now? I use my own homebuilt 4" reflector, with great clear night at 5,000 feet in NM. A friend of mine still uses the Meade 8" reflector he purchased from me all those years ago.

[@blmgt]

Long before I had funds to buy a telescope I would buy a Sky & T or Astronomy mag and look at the 2 page glossy Meade ads and dream about the one I would buy. From those ads i concluded Meade was better than Celestron. Time passed, and never bot a Meade but did buy a Celestron SCT , Skywatcher refractor and Orion Altas Pro (by Skywatcher) mount. Would not have guessed 20 years ago things would turn out as they have.

[@DylanODonnell]

Me too! Meade were like Ferrari for a while there.

[@justice_1337]

I think I still have one of those meade fancy catalogs from back in the day as well. 😁

[@MrMesospheric]

I used to be much the same. I started with a British small-scale manufacturer 11" Newtonian, which was outstanding. I then sold this and fancied the Meade SCTs due to their ease of connection to computers. It was a good 'scope for imaging, but visually, compared to the Newt, it was really very poor indeed. House moves forced something more robust to be thrown in the back of a car - a Skywatcher 6" refractor. Now 22 years old, much cheaper and more practical than the heavy short tube SCT. I'd never buy an SCT again.

[@theoldman2821]

I have a 30 year old eyepiece case from Orion that is still going strong. I recently bought the short tube 80 mm refractor to carry with me to see the eclipse in April. Got to show lots of people the eclipse using it and even a tripod I got from them. They were a great company.

[@paulreddy3851]

Same here. I would rush out to get the latest Sky and Telescope issue and drool over the Meade, Celestron, Obsession telescopes. The articles on DIY amateur astronomy was the main draw card. I ended up buying an Odyssey 8 inch Dobsonian with a Telrad viewfinder. Wonderful memories looking at deep sky objects.

[@JacquesMare]

Yip... just got an email from the Johannesburg Planetarium (agents for Orion in South Africa) informing me about the situation and that they can't process my order for the Orion coma corrector. Man.... what a loss.... I bought my Orion XT8 light bucket in 2006 and am very attached to it, though it is beginning to show some wear and tear....I can't believe it's been 18 years of awesome stargazing memories. Thanks for the update....

[@skatetoexplorevideos2477]

In 2006 I went to the Orion Telescopes shop in Watsonville, California. It was a nice looking store. Bought their 12" Dob telescope. I still have it today and it works like the day I bought it. I was tempted to sell it several times. But, when I got a new car and found out that my telescope fits in there, well, I won't ever sell it now. I can take it to isolated places away from light pollution. This is what I always wanted.

[@kodywillnauer9422]

90s kid, and I saved my entire summer lawn mowing money to buy an Orion DSE dob telescope. Always seeing the Meade lx90/200 back cover ad in sky&tel. To this day I still want a LX to compete that kid dream. Bit of a bummer to hear. Thanks for the vid.

[@williamcecil9945]

Dylan, I had been a Meade user for many years but have seen them slowly wither on the vine. Back in the late 80's they were in Irvine and you could visit their headquarters which looked like a going concern. Brought my mount in for repair and got it switched out for a new one right on the spot. Then in the 2000's had a board go out on a newer Meade model and visited their new location which was nothing like the previous one. Walked in and had to walk around to find someone. Long story short, they sent my mount to Mexico and I got it back in good working order. Under warranty thank goodness. So is there a message, quality control was maybe lacking with Meade??? Second point. I got an Orion mount an Atlas II EQ-6 which was basically a Sky Watcher EQ-6 in black in 2021. From time to time I would visit Orion looking for their larger mount but is stopped being shown on the website as well as the Atlas II. I also noticed their offerings getting smaller and smaller, particularly their branded equipment. Even videos with Ken were never updated. Finally in the past year we also lost Oceanside Photo and Telescope which closed its doors in August. It had a retail store then was sold and went all web based. It really went downhill from there. It's a tough road being an astronomy dealer and manufacturer.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yeh.. that's exactly right. It's important to note it's a big industry, but it's not huge as far as industries go. There isn't a lot of room for too many players, but there is still lots of ambition behind the scenes.

[@JeffCounsil-rp4qv]

OPT was purchased by Agena Astro. I have purchased many things from Agena over the years. Scott (who I dealt with directly), and all of Agena customer service is top notch. Like many others, I used to drool over the Orion catalogs. But I bought the "same stuff" by another "brand" elsewhere. The Atlas mounts were Skywatcher mounts, with different paint and decals. I still use a Skywatcher HEQ5 non-GoTo to which I added an ST4 port to the handbox. Although a few times I did buy some Orion branded smaller items when they were "on sale" and/or "clearance" items. My very first scope as a child in the 60s, was an Edmund Space Conqueror 3" reflector. I had so much fun with that. I bought a Meade 8" F/6 mirror and built a Newtonian reflector. It was great! Then my first "real" scope was a Meade 8" SCT on the LX3 base I bought used. Then later sold it and bought a brand new Meade 8" LX5 SCT. I loved that scope and learned quickly how to collimate an SCT. I have bought many scopes through the years with some Meade, some Celestron, and some others. In later years, I have been repairing the LX200 Classic electronics for others. Which also includes the LXD600/650/700/750 GEM mounts. My own LXD600 I bought without electronics I had converted it to use the Autostar controller instead of the old LX200 Classic electronics. It is a well built GEM head miles ahead of other "sleeve bearing" and "ball bearing" mounts. It has heavy duty tapered roller bearings. I also went "big" and bought a brand new DS-16A (A version has real bearings in the RA axis) and Meade never did charge me the FOB shipping from Irvine. I no longer have that scope (used the mirror in a Dob), but I still have the mount I customized adding a worm drive to the DEC shaft. I also converted an LX50 into an LX200 Classic (had to machine the base for the LX200 Classic RA motor). Now I have converted that one to use the Autostar #495/497/Audiostar with a modified ETX125 mainboard. The Meade fork mounts back then were very robust, better than Celestron's offerings at the time. The LX200 GPS (and newer) began the downhill trend in quality using more plastic, and "hot glue" during assembly, WTF?. The LX90? Faggetaboutit. The drives were sloppy, and used the thinner forks of the very early LX fork mounts covered in plastic. Although I "fixed" the drive sloppiness, the 10" was still too heavy for the thin forks so I sold it cheap to someone at a Star Party. I think the biggest turning point (besides the quality dropping off), was the RCX versions that were way too complicated with many failures. Meade brought one to a Star Party, and the accompanying engineers couldn't even get it to work right. That and the lawsuit where Meade called them "Ritchey-Chrétien" which they were not, and lost. They were then renamed "RCX". That deceptive move lost Meade a lot of customers. I still have one of the MCSOG 8" which had the silver coated mirrors, which also failed miserably. Silver never lasts very long, even when hard overcoated. That one is getting a fresh aluminum coating for the mirrors. It does have very sharp optics so it is well worth the cost to send the mirrors out. When Meade bought Coronado, the quality also suffered quite a bit since the days of David/Andy Lunt. With their (Meade) blocking filters now failing, the SMII and SMIII Ha scopes will be all but useless very soon. Although a Lunt blocking filter will "work", the wavelengths are a bit different. The gold coatings on the Coronado diagonal mirrors are also failing so changing the ITF will not cure a bad Coronado blocking filter that has a degraded mirror. Their "Rich Field Tuning" (vs original tilt tuning) was also a bust sometimes breaking the glass, and inability to fully tune on band at altitude, and some temperature ranges. Meade ruined the Coronado name. I'm retired now, but still take on the occasional LX200 Classic repair jobs. But major spare parts, mainboards and motor gearboxes specifically, are getting scarce. Meade quit making them decades ago. I have a few, but only a few spares left. Clearline-tech.com makes replacement handboxes, motor encoder boards, and replacement power panels for the LX200 Classic so those are easy to get if needed.

[@jorymil]

Being made in Mexico isn't necessarily bad. Many of the Mexican-made Fender guitars have been superior to their US-made counterparts, for example. But the quality control needs to be there.

[@jamestickle3070]

Meade had great optics but their electronics were a bit futzy and they were very expensive. I complain all day about Celestron customer service and some of their gear like the CGX, but they kept it affordable. They also saw the market of the RASA wide angle fast telescopes for photography. I think Meade had a lot of tie to visual. I tried using them a bit but couldn’t get any aftermarket stuff. I loved Orion Atlas Mount and their HDX (?) I think Mount for big and heavy photo gear. I also love the Dobson scopes they make. Funny though, it’s all coming from a couple places in China. Coke vs Pepsi

[@jakecook4977]

Interesting data point. I have owned 2 meade scopes and two orions. So indeed small data set but both meade scopes I had I sold because the primary mirrors were so bad. The orions had amazing figure for being commercial scopes. I still have an orion xx14g goto dob as my outreach scope that has given many of my fellow club members the best views of (blank).

[@garyb6219]

I have a Coronado PST and a Meade 10" SCT from 2001. Both work and look great. I've had the 10" at a lot of public star parties, right around 6,000 people have looked through that scope.

[@jdmillar1958]

Meade had it's production in Irvine, California early days, quality fell away when it moved production to Mexico for some reason. Early on, it's optics were incredible, but it lacked in mounts, the etx 125 was notorious for failing on the mount. Hoping they will rise like a phoenix from the celestial dust!

[@richardwarren7492]

16542 Millikan Avenue in Irvine, then 6001 Oak Canyon, located as well in Irvine. The Oak Canyon in use until 2009

[@kenfrank2730]

actually made by American workers?

[@richardwarren7492]

@@kenfrank2730 Originally yes and for many years.

[@tomn8tr]

The Irvine optics were outstanding. Actually, they were stellar!

[@alexanderreinders4009]

Hi Dylan! Could you link all the charts of your very interesting presentation? I would like to have a closer look on them! Thanks - Alex

[@nomercy_AtAll]

Not really surprised or disappointed with Meade. I bought a Meade 127mm APO triplet with a 1 inch scratch on the inside of the front lens element -I did not see the scratch until months later. I contacted Meade, who said sorry not their problem and would not stand behind their product. RIP Meade.

[@deepskydetail]

I feel like Orion was selling generic equipment for premium prices. You could find any product orion was selling on high point scientific or other sites under another brand name with what seemed like a 25% discount or more. Want a 6" RC in 2020? Orion's was $600+ but on other sites they had $400 GSOs. Want an astro camera? Orion's was decent, but there were better options. A shame, really.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yeh that model doesn’t work very well.

[@BBROPHOTO]

100% this. In the UK I only know of Orion for having Syna & GSO rebranded scopes and mounts.

[@paulmurphy9358]

I had the normal start for an 80s kid - I bought a 60mm refractor off a classmate in middle school. A blurry Moon was the best I could do. I then proceeded to make the rookie move of getting a 114mm newtonian on an equatorial mount, which had the stability of a a bunch of paperclips held together with bubblegum. I was able to get my first good view of Saturn's rings, my first globular cluster, and of course - the Moon went from a blurry blob to a stark landscape of craters and mountains. I drifted away from the hobby in high school and college, then I got my first real job and bought a Tele Vue Pronto on a Telepod mount. It was the middle of winter, I walked it out into the snowy yard, pointed at the first quarter Moon and I was hooked. The Moon was staggeringly crisp. Silver, pewter, iron, chalk, and most compelling of all were the serrated cliffs falling away into the absolute void along the terminator. I was tempted by those ETX-90 ads comparing it to a Questar, but I noticed they always use the term refractor-like. Almost as good, but a longer cool down and slightly less contrast. I continued with a Tele Vue 102 and got mild aperture fever. Nexstar 8, pointed at the Moon and it was brighter. A lot brighter. On close inspection, I could see a bit more detail, but the TV-102 on the Moon is an otherworldly work of art, whereas the SCT showed a washed out, softer view. For visual on the Moon, it'll always be apos for me, but I picked up a Seestar and it is sooo much fun. When you made jokes about visual astronomers, in my head I made jokes about the current state of astrophotography being $8000 in equipment, 300 hours of pain getting it all working properly, 1 hour of planning and starting a session, 5 hours of hoping the pre-programmed session went ok, then 5 hours navigating a labyrinth of image editing software settings. People may sneer at the Seestar, but it is so much fun - definitely a gateway drug enticing us into thinking what I described above is not so bad - in fact the challenge and the reward will be so much more when we can actually image those targets to the full potential of our sky conditions. It's sad to see Orion and Meade go, but like you showed, as real independent entities, they went a long time ago. Telescopes are a grocery store relabelling the same product with 5 different brand names. The hobby has a new direction and the cell phone camera wars are putting what used to be observatory class photos into the realm of backyard imaging reality. Fun times ahead - and a bit easier with the frustrations out of the way: auto-leveling tripods, plate solving automatic polar alignment, built-in auto focusers, built-in dew heaters, turrets for an instant transition from photography to visual, a single through the mount universal wiring harness, wifi 7 cameras for RASA without a wire, the possibilities are endless. Clear skies.

[@DylanODonnell]

great journey!

[@dalehooper7962]

In 1997 I purchased a 10 inch Meade LX200. Back then Meade was SCT goto king. But, their customer service was bad. So I purchased a 14 inch Celestron Edge HD. A few years ago I purchased a 14 inch Orion SkyQuest Goto Dob which is my favorite travel scope. But, after the Meade acquisition you could no longer purchase it. You now have to get the Sky Watcher flextube version - which I don't think is as good. So Orion/Meade no longer really had anything to set themselves apart.

[@francesostahowski]

Small business scope makers have closed their doors as well. We ( Ostahowski Optics) made lenses for several of them. Meade and Celestron sold scopes for less than we can get the glass for. We continue to supply optics for Obsession Telescopes, private parties, and a few international business's.

[@DylanODonnell]

Sorry to hear that :(

[@striperseeker]

I still have my 1990 Meade Premier 2080 SCT with LX6 drive. Optics are great. Motor still runs and tracks with minimal error.

[@justinmorgan7851]

Part of the Meade downfall might be the Celestron supremacy in SCTs, which is a huge part of the astronomy market. Meade rolled out ACF, which is a nice improvement over their older SCTs, but Celestron developed EdgeHD tech, which is objectively better than ACF in many ways. On top of that, Celectron's new SCTs supported Hyperstar. Also, Meade also had gaffes with other products such as the RCX400 series, which was a great idea but poorly executed in terms of quality control, etc., which left a sour taste among the community. Meade shooting themselves in the foot with RCX400, uncertainty over the company regarding legal issues, the Celestron supremacy in SCTs, and other problems all conspired to doom them. Too bad, because they were once arguably the most sought-after major brand, long ago.

[@DylanODonnell]

Absolutely .. accurate assessment.

[@thomaslin1206]

My first telescope was a Meade 8" reflector on an EQ mount I bought in the late 90s off Craigs List. I still have the OTA...wasn't sure if the mirror could be reused somehow.

[@mrjack8849]

I remember the hype of marketing Orion had for their Coronado solar scopes leading up the eclipse. Then literally that evening, everything went 25% off or more. I just don't think they had many takers for specialized mass-produced solar scopes that they expected. I enjoy my Orion 8" Dob and 6" Astrograph. I had pretty good luck with them and was able to get int several years ago (pre-pandemic) for a fair price. Like everything else though, the prices shot up, but spending is down because of the economy and people just don't have the money anymore on large hobby expenses. It mirrors the bike industry with a large Covid bump followed by a crash with many bike companies and shops going under.

[@jamesdenson4730]

I used to buy the Meade products many years ago. I stopped purchasing from them because they were not supporting their products. I am absolute rank amateur in astronomy, but I have several not-so-expensive telescopes. My oldest is the old Meade that no longer operates because I couldn't get a replacement mirror from Meade. After that, I started purchasing Celestron and have done so ever since because their level of service has been much better. At least in my experience.

[@DylanODonnell]

yeh that's a horror story! Glad Celestron was a better experience.

[@Ohmy1956]

I agree that Meade doesn’t support their products once they’re out of production and Celestron always has

[@TheCrossroads533]

I am still reeling from the demise of Edmund Scientific telescopes! Seriously, good report. You are the first and so far only to discuss this on KZbin. Mm, could my Meade and Orion scopes possibly become collectibles? Too many out there I suppose.

[@DylanODonnell]

I like the industry news reports huh? .. it's hard to know what's going on in astronomy otherwise. it's not like it shows up on CNN.

[@timmotel5804]

Good Day. Sad things are happening these days in amateur and amateur+ astronomy. I've been a MEADE fan & buyer since 1995. Presently, I am using my second 10" LX200, this one is a GPS scope with enhanced optics. It's now 14 years old and still going strong. this is my third telescope and I bought them all from "OPT". A Great Store. They Are Missed. COVID not only killed people, but many many businesses also. A good presentation. Thank You

[@6346n]

I have a 10"LX-50 sct. I purchased it in December 2000. It has served me very well. I used it for planetary imaging with the original Philips Toucam Pro and Registax. The optics were excellent! The tracking wasn't great but it was good enough. On one occasion I had a polarity issue and blew the circuit board. The Meade factory support was excellent! I had my new board in barely a week. Gonna miss them.

[@4TheRecord]

For anyone interested, Meade Instruments UK may still be in business. Their website is still up.

[@DylanODonnell]

No, it's not really.

[@sHuRuLuNi]

Have a 10" Meade SCT tube sitting on a eq-6r. Haven't configured it yet (waiting for a certain controller). Will be using it for long focal AP. Before I deforked it, I used it for some time visually - I must say it was spectacular in that regard.

[@slickzMdzn]

So you have the LX200 OTA?

[@Mrpaulgs]

Great video, great info. I don't see anyone else on my subscription list talking about this. My first scope was a 10" Orion Dobsonian that I quickly sold when I discovered it wasn't good for astrophotography. I do own a nice Coronado 60mm solar scope so sorry to see that brand disappear.

[@DylanODonnell]

I was surprised nobody else had done a video either. Seems like big news?

[@Ohmy1956]

There was also the “align north” lawsuit Meade filed against Celestron who eventually settled. That’s when Celestron started getting strong because so many people were disgusted by it.(everyone aligned with the North Star). Celestron developed the 3star alignment. Also Meades LX75 series was plagued with problems so much that at star parties there was always more than one failure. Meades SCT optics were also no match with Celestron

[@JohnSmith-sm8oz]

Dillion you’re 100% right on when you said a lot of Meade people are from back in the day. I’ve been a Meade guy since 87 and also your comment about them just not keeping up. Dead right. Celestron sucked back then but they was able to innovate and kept up with the surge of astrophotography early in this century. Meade did not. That’s why we are here. So you’re absolutely right, coming from a guy, me, that’s been in this hobby since 1965. I’ve seen a lot of the surges in the hobby. It’s sad to loose a good brand, but when you don’t keep up you get left behind.

[@ArzenalX]

I was very lucky to get a very well-preserved early 2000s Meade LX200-EMC (previous owner used it literally twice before leaving it in his living room for 20 years). Even at its raw performance standpoint (no modifications aside a couple capacitors due to safety, with its chunky controller still mint condition) has given me very good nights, with a very impressive and still functional tracking algorithm (I have used it 30 or more times this year alone). It makes me sad that these companies are slowly fading away, but the silver lining is that there are still a lot of smaller niche communities willing to help the people that still use these instruments, providing maintenance and sometimes newly manufactured replacement parts. I will continue using my own LX200 until the mount finally dies, before moving it to a ZWO AM5 and keep using it until I physically can't. I think of my telescope as a public time capsule, that gives some perspective in how the Early 2000s technology used to work and people used to get by back then. The instrument is also very gorgeous.

[@rftstars]

Ugh... We literally just received a donation of an old Meade 178ED APO EMC refractor, a monster 7inch beast that we would have loved to reach out to Meade about... Wonderful. :(

[@usmcbrat2]

The only Meade stuff I own were eyepieces bought at Celestron in-house factory sales 30-35 years ago. (We needed to keep track of what the competition was up to.) Their early version (smooth barrel) 6.7 UWA eyepiece, with its 84 deg AFOV, has long been my go-to when the seeing is excellent.

[@terrizittritsch745]

Sad to hear that Orion and Meade are going out with a whimper. I still have a Meade 8” Meade LX90 with excellent optics, mechanicals and electronics. I use it primarily for outreach events as I have far too many telescopes. I used to stop by the Orion store on the west coast when I was traveling for business. It was a small place stuffed to the gills attached to their warehouse, I think or at least that was my impression. I’ve not used them for years as other companies got my business (Agena, OPT for a while until they went out). If you don’t change with the times this is the result. Another chapter closed.

[@matthewbaker7513]

More than anything I'm surprised, but maybe I shouldn't be. Orion seemed like such a staple for the longest time, especially in the dob space. Speaking to just one small avenue of their business, visual astronomy, I think with the pandemic they failed to translate their lineup of products to the consumer when companies like apertura and skywatcher had significantly more competitive prices. Past that, I'm not sure I'd ever recommended orion products for... anything except for the occasional finder or the ST80. I believe in the years since I've gotten into astronomy I've only bought a finder and the 2x54 binos. Orion commanded a high price, and although it was probably worth that much given their rather immaculate QA record, they really couldn't compete at a value level with any given generic option when it came to the visual astronomy scene. I think it's a shame, because every single Orion product I've used has been excellent. Not a single complaint. That's rare these days, and it looks like it's going to get much rarer.

[@Ghostflyer63]

I have a LX200 8 Meade from the late 90s i have revamped the electronic components on the logic boards. Yes it still sounds like a coffee grinder. Recently I have been considering deforking it and putting it on one of the new harmonic mounts. What are your thoughts?

[@guarmiron5557]

I deforked my Super C8+ from its old clock drive and put a vixen bar on it. It was a great choice. That little scope has great mirrors and it kills photographically on a modern mount.

[@fredmercury1314]

I haven't seen a clear sky in over a year.

[@briankentAstroPianist]

So I was later to the game of bigger optics and mounts, and always bought used products in the 2010s. I started with a new Meade 4.5 in reflector and their crummy mount in 2003. Bought my 1st small German equatorial in 2093, threw away the Meade mount. Bought a used 10in lxd65 Schmidt Cassegraine scope, simply marvelous optics for price, mount was dog dirt. Bought a Celestron vx mount for the Meade 10 inch, which was ok, but the ota was modified with an event horizon focuser which made it to heavy for the Celestron mount. So I bought a sky watcher eq6 mount for the lxd65 and it worked great, sold the Meade lxd65 mount for parts. Then I came to possess an lx200 12" that was unused for 7 years. The Kx209 mount was burned out, as an electrical engineer I fixed the blown capacitors. I kept the astounding 12 in SCT tube, sold the mount. Want to know why Meade died .. because their mounts were horrible.

[@robertasumendi]

Hope the workers can get paid what they're owed. The Orion Dobs were the nicest entry-level dobs but it's hard to imagine another company wanting to pick up much beyond the PST etalons.

[@miles5107]

I just went to their store in June, oddly enough. Glad I did, now!

[@astroazores]

All I can say is that I'm still using a 22 years old Meade ETX 70AT to do solar imaging with a Baader solar film and a ZWO ASI 178MM. The optics are not too bad and the electronics still work!

[@Seafox0011]

Probably looking for a buyer to asset strip the Meade IP as that still has a lot of value.

[@catsaur]

I worked at Orion, and eventually left (after the court case and Meade acquisition). I was not high up in the company by any means but towards the end of my time it was clear to me that staffing was falling out, product lineups were being axed without notice, and we couldn't meet demand during the pandemic. In my opinion our team was ill-equipped to handle customer base at some point. I never once talked to the Meade team after they got merged with us. I can't speak for most recently before they shut down, but I have former co-workers that left not long before this happened. It's strange, I remember hearing word about Orion winning the case and a couple co-workers that were more involved with the case were quite excited about expanding the company and having more products available. I wasn't really involved with it though so my perspective is only about the internal day-to-day sales.

[@DylanODonnell]

Really interesting.. sounds like it could've been a structural / management issue despite any of the lawsuit stuff. Thanks for the insights.

[@catsaur]

@@DylanODonnell I definitely think that internal team issues was part of it at least. You can't expect to make sales and shipments if you don't have the sales team needed to do that.

[@jdpartridge]

Sad to see this. Orion was my first choice when I got my feet wet in the hobby way back in 2001. I have bought a lot of their gear over the years. I still own their Eq6 equatorial mount, binoculars, a 10 inch Orion dob that has sparked interest with people over the years, and a lot more. It will be sad if they disappear like so many others post pandemic.

[@altostratus93]

I'm a Meade guy. Meade was the shit back in the 80s and 90s and Celestron was like a high end Tasco back then. Meade really had top notch products and innovation and really seemed like the leaders in the field. I've watched the fall off in Meade over time and you could see something was up with the decline in advertising over the years. I dont know.. it seems like someone made a lot of money and then just stopped working. It like they bought a boat and every board meeting, they were content if they buy fuel to keep the party going. It's a shame to see such an iconic manufacturer go though. I have a 12" LX200 and it's awesome....

[@briankotak403]

When I first got into astrophotography, I loved to watch the short “Ken from Orion” product videos. Those disappeared a few years ago. The disappearance of Orion’s mounts was another sign of things to come. Too bad. I have an Orion Atlas mount which works flawlessly, as does a doublet refractor from Orion. As I watched brands like Askar innovate and put out reasonably priced refractors, and Celestron continue to provide great SCTs to the market, it was only a matter of time before Orion faded from the picture. That’s a shame.

[@M42-Orion-Nebula]

Ken's videos introduced me to the basics of astronomy so many years ago... (I was 8 years old 😂)

[@tubedude54]

20 years ago I almost bought the Meade 12" SCT... I was ready to pull the trigger but I kept looking at the C11 with Fastar and the fact the Meade couldn't do it killed the deal and I went C11. Never looked back.

[@n8ibz1]

Meade was the whip? Had several Sct’s, but did buy a cpc 11 when they first came out

[@TimAZ-ih7yb]

Thank you for this clear explanation of the rumors we’ve heard on some astro forums. When Orion’s founder sold out to financiers several years ago IMO the writing was on the wall. In typical fashion they milked the profits and never invested in new products that would keep brands like Meade competitive. I doubt that Celestron is interested, but maybe someone will buy the bones of Meade’s facility in Mexico and continue to offer current owners replacement parts and service.

[@paulcooper8818]

I had a 10" Orion Dob that I watched the effects of Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashing into Jupiter, later watched Hale-Bopp slowly turn and in between great lunar views, galaxies and nebulae. Of all the scope I've owned, that was the scope I enjoyed the most, despite its limitations

[@jeffa.2770]

So what is a good telescope to buy now?

[@randydewees7338]

I've basically been a Celestron guy since 1973. And a lot of other brands including many telescopes I made - optics and all. Compared to Meade, Celestron's arc has been longer and more complex. They were making institutional grade telescopes in the 60's. I remember in the 70's when Meade was a little import outfit in Costa Mesa or Fountain Valley, I bought a 3"F15 objective in cell from them. But in the late 80's and into the 90's Meade just crushed it with their computer LX scopes. They rode that success a long time. One modern scope Meade was making that Celestron could not compete with was their 16" SCT. It seems the optics are marvelous, and the fork mount makes a very convenient and fun viewer. It's a beast no doubt, and for the money one can get a premium 22-24" dob with drives. I have a C14 on a GEM, I'd switch to a M-16 if I could just find one. If they (but who??) could somehow keep making those, I think they would be sold out forever.

[@127Foxtrot]

I remember that scope, it was a beast and with that monstrous base/mount. And didn’t it also introduce that Starlock tracking telescope/electronics on that scope as well…?

[@ziggyfrnds]

Really sad news! I too remember fondly reading Meade adverts in old National Geographics magazines and drooling over them (old NG's were all that was available in my country in the 90's) An uncle of mine bought a Meade ETX 90 over from USA when he went for a trip, looking at Jupiter through that was the highlight of my life back then :) Thanks for sharing Dylan! Always a good day when you upload :) Even if its sad news

[@DylanODonnell]

Thanks Zigs!

[@cosmoscarl4332]

There's a guy on a KZbin channel called 'Reflactor' who has had a channel for a long time, and dealt mostly with Orion beginner type telescopes, bino viewers and repairs who says Orion is capput! At least, he says, the hand controller firmware upgrade sites are still available for now. I have the Orion HDX 110 mount so as soon as this thunderstorm passes I'm going to see if I need one.

[@dennisk5818]

Picked up an ETX90 and hope to be able to use it for a while. BTW, Lock your focus on your camera. The auto focus kept shifting from you to your background.

[@richhudnut5110]

Sad, going to the garage to hug my LX90 8"

[@DylanODonnell]

❤️

[@markwiygul6356]

When Orion became really popular they were synonymous with high value products that delivered more performance for the dollar than any other brand, with quality starting at a level that was a notch above the "department store" telescope offerings. Note, that was back in the day when "department stores" actually sold telescopes. Few people even shop at "department stores" any more. Most shop at Big Box Stores. Kids today don't even know what a "department store" is. (not Target folks). Now, boutique brands have grabbed the top spot in offering more telescope for the dollar. And, Telescopes are not as popular in suburban backyards anymore. Everyone's scared someone will mistake their instrument for a weapon, so they shy away from using them. So out go popular telescopes and backyard astronomy.

[@jonthomas8487]

The biggest loss if they are truly gone is Meade’s Schmidt Cassegrain telescopes. Most of what Orion sold were private labeled items made by others. I hope someone buys the tooling for the Meade ACF SCT’s and keeps them going. Maybe someone like Lunt or APM could go for it. As others have said we can live without Meade mounts but the market needs competition on SCT OTA’s

[@StarGazer568]

I bought my Meade 8" SCT back in 1985 and I still have it. It's showing its age. I've noticed how difficult it is to find Meade accessories and wondered if the corporation was still operating. This says it all. Most unfortunate.

[@aw7425]

Thank you Dr Dylan. Sustainability is difficult in these times. Loved my previous Meades and started with an ETX, but moved on years ago to other brands as they just didn’t innovate enough and started using plastic gears that had a high failure rate.

[@AmatureAstronomer]

Fewer manufacturers means less competition means poorer and more expensive telescopes.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yeh the "Anti trust" lawsuit win hasn't really borne any fruit has it?

[@Ben_Stewart]

Got my first telescope from Orion. The 8" blue Xt Plus. I will never sell it as it's the best visual light bucket I have. Very happy with it. It's a great brand that couldn't keep up with new kids on the block and hopefully they are bought out and the name can maybe live on.

[@astronome66]

Hey! We have the same scopes 😊 I got mine during covid when it was the best deal I could find. No complaints here and I agree about never selling it. So many happy memories with it already and lots more to come. Cheers!

[@johnbarton7168]

Still got my SN10 - use it for comet chasing when weather permits. The mount was too small though. Added a moonlite focuser. Goes like a champion

[@jeromeroberts3494]

Ok I always seem to be behind in things but I was just on both websites Meade and Orion and everything from what I saw on their main page is on SALE , to bad cause I was looking at buying a planetary camera from Orion

[@DeereX748]

Our club has an older 10" Meade Schmidt-Cass, an excellent telescope. Sorry to hear of their apparent demise, as well as that of Orion and Coronado. I've never really looked into where all these brands were manufactured, beyond them being from China, but which China? Mainland, or Taiwan? I hope that Celestron continues, as well as Skywatcher, as one of my mounts is a Skywatcher and one of my scopes is a Celestron. All this looks like the big dragon is eating all the smaller ones, until it will be the only one remaining. What does this mean for other Chinese manufacturers, such as ZWO?

[@gabrieldavidson4442]

I think quite a bit of it stems down to advertising. During the COVID era, Celestron marketed itself as a beginner friendly telescope manufacturer, released all sorts of videos on their equipment and how to use it. Compare that to Meade where there wasn’t a ton of new information readily available to people getting into the Astronomy craze.

[@DylanODonnell]

Totally agree. It’s not just about hardware.

[@stevenemert837]

@@DylanODonnell Agreed. It's especially not just about hardware today, it's about the electronics and the software. Celestron's Starsense Explorer smartphone finder app is a fantastic idea, making it easier for beginning visual observing. And it just works, reliably! Everyone I know has SkySafari or an app based on SkySafari (often Celestron-labeled) on their phone. Then you move into the new smart scopes and astrophotography and the optical train, although critically necessary, seems to be secondary to the whole process. Compare to all that, the venerable LX200 with Autostar handset feels ancient, and the one Lightswitch I've worked with that is supposed to auto-align to the sky never worked reliably. Meade has/had great optics, but clunky electronics IMO.

[@theoldman2821]

You obviously have a lot of amazing optical equipment. May I suggest turning the autofocus off on your studio camera?

[@guarmiron5557]

I own a made in Japan "circle T" 80mm Meade achromatic with a 1200 mm fl (from the 70's). It is an amazing little scope with such a classic look. Beautiful. I also own a bunch of Meade made in Japan orthos which I think are quite good. I have an AR 6 by Meade from the '90's which has pretty good optics but the lenses are mounted in plastic. Then I have two ETX-60's which are ETX-60's . . . lol (my first deck scope for short cloud breaks). I own 7 catadioptric telescopes of 4 different brands and have to admit that Meade never attracted me in this category.

[@maxpeck5]

My first telescope from Meade, (826) was back in 79’ and my first trip to a telescope shop was Orion Telescopes in Santa Cruz, California in the 80’s. What a shame.

[@DylanODonnell]

yup, kinda sad eh

[@jongroubert4203]

I bought the 826 in 1980! Great scope. But HEAVY for a 14-year-old.

[@maxpeck5]

@@jongroubert4203 Damn heavy!

[@FAstroHD]

I own an EdgeHD8 and I love it,but I remember back in the 90's all I wanted was a Meade but I just could not afford it back then, it's sad to see these guys go

[@bad_metaphor]

Another factor is that Agena Astro has become one of the most popular online vendors and a big focus of theirs is obviously astrophotography. Orion has really been falling behind in terms of their product offerings and stock numbers. It felt like the only astrophotography mount they were offering was the midling lx75. And even now their website shows only a couple of okay mounts with nothing to compete with strainwave tech. Camera wise it feels like their offerings are no different than what they had in 2014. If they go through bankruptcy, they're going to have make some painful decisions. Though i love my meade sct, they should sell meade to someone else who knows how to market that brand.

[@bad_metaphor]

UPDATE: Looks like the website is finally down. I hope not too many customers got burned.

[@jonathanr2830]

Superb analysis! Top-notch! Thank you very much! 🎯

[@DylanODonnell]

Thanks !

[@ivolol]

Does this mean Celestron et all can raise the prices now?

[@jorymil]

I own a 6" Orion maksutov, and had wanted spare parts. Obviously no such luck. The mount was actually a rebranded Skywatcher, which is kind of cool. The website was pretty rough, and didn't advertise their own scopes. Sounds like there's room for a new telescope company.

[@timmaculate70]

It would be interesting to do a comparison of Meade LX200 ACF and Celestron Edge at 8"/10"+ don't you think?

[@ericemanuelson5128]

Right after orion acquired Meade, they stopped producing a lot of the more popular orion telescopes. I thought that they were using the plant in Mexico to manufacture orion telescopes and accessories since . It's a shame I have a bunch of Orion gear.

[@DylanODonnell]

Yeh I think the lawsuit may have disrupted the supply chain for Orion :/

[@jongroubert4203]

@@DylanODonnell More likely it was "Collusion II" - Celestron trying - and now succeeding - to get rid of Orion again.

[@kevinhaynes9091]

Picked up a couple of the Orion ST80-A and an ST80-T when they were available over the last few years. I've upgraded one with the GSO86 focuser and mount it on a Porta II, as one of my travel scopes. The other two will remain boxed, and although not the best scopes in the world, will make a lucky fun find for someone in years to come. My earliest memories of telescopes were the Meade adverts in National Geographic. I always dreamt of one day having one of their iconic blue reflectors, the bigger the better, but eventually decided I wanted a nice 4" refractor instead. In the end I did also get a little Celestron 5SE, but if I had my time over again, maybe I'd sell one of the kids, build an observatory, and get that 16" Meade that I always dreamt of...

[@kevinwalsh8933]

Cave Astrola, Unitron, Edmunds, Jaegers, University Optics, Criterion… and even OPT not that long ago. Over the years there have been many telescope companies that were great and are now gone. But new ones have arisen. SkyWatcher, Ioptron, Agena Astro, ZWO, and many more in the US and around the world. I’ve got Celestron and Losmandy mounts, aux items from Orion and ZWO, and telescopes from OPT, Askar, and Meade. Coincidentally I’ve recently gotten my Meade SN10 out of storage and am getting it ready to put on the Losmandy mount. ‘Life goes on…’

[@evertonporter7887]

Unitron scopes now fetch insane prices on Ebay now.

[@The13rannon]

I feel like Meade and Orion just stopped innovating, they were not coming out with anything new. Just hoping that the old stuff would just keep selling. Doesn’t help that Orion had horrible customer service and refused to help you with a product unless you could prove you were the original purchaser. I needed a screw size for like an OAG or something, and the guy was so rude on the phone and wouldn’t help me at all because I bought it second hand, I never purchased Orion again after that, new or used.

[@MrMesospheric]

An interesting question, perhaps one less likely to be asked by well-off consumers of expensive technology in the rich north, is this: what are working conditions, rights and renumeration like for people working in a telescope factory based in Mexico?

[@Desertskyobservatoy1925]

I never had the pleasure of owning a Meade telescope. However, I did do my research years ago when I purchased my first scope and it came down to either a Meade or Celestron; since their advertising years ago was impressive. As I did my homework looking at optics, electronics and versatility of different Schmidt Cassegrain Telescopes I came across a lot of astronomy forums that swayed me to go with Celestron, but I still was always curious about Meade telescopes. It's sad to see some of the more popular markets of a particular hobby go under...kind of reminds me of buying an air conditioner where I'm at in Arizona, there's loads of different brands but only 1 or 2 manufactures.

[@annikasoraya4322]

Hey mate, you have taken your video presentations to a whole new level with this one! Thanks for sharing your honest insights and passion for this crazy hobbie we all love. Your research and ability to better educate our Astro community is extraordinary and we are grateful to have your talent Dylan. Your awesome knowledge and dedication are our greatest asset. Thank you for kindly sharing your gifts with the world! Take care and clear skies blessed soul. Annika 🔮🌎

[@keithw7542]

I have been a Meade guy for well over 3 decades. The quality of the Meade scopes and software started to degrade over the past decade or so. The quality of my LX600 was nowhere near the same level as my first LX200 Classic I bought in the early 90's - which still works btw! This to me had a large effect on loyal customers jumping ship mainly because of dissatisfaction and horrible customer service experiences. I became familiar with those supporting the products and my impression was the staff was too small and there was not enough investment in the firmware to overcome the major hurdles they faced. The LX600 I have had to be sent back for warranty shortly after receiving it. The Star Lock scope was made so poorly the dew cover always fell off. I believe the support people I encountered there tried their best but not enough properly directed resources contributed to their downfall and frustrations. I do hope someone releases the software to become Open Source allowing the existing Meade base to continue to keep their scopes going.

[@laserjock509]

I've had a Meade as my main telescope since 1987, and currently have an LX200 12-inch ACF SCT mounted in my observatory. As early as the 1970s, as a penniless kid I would spend hours pondering the Meade advertisements in Astronomy magazine, and one of the most memorable purchases of my life was my first serious telescope, a DS-10A, in 1987 (six weeks delivery time!). I've had the sense for years that Meade was fading away - an empty shell. I've pondered defecting to Celestron, but am probably more likely to keep my current OTA and eventually remount it to a modern equatorial mount. Sad to see this once wonderful company go under due to mismanagement, but that's life I guess.

[@127Foxtrot]

Those Meade ads in Astronomy magazine, those were the days… !

[@giuseppiallegro]

I am fairly new to the hobby. Until I saw that you could get decent images from light polluted areas, I never gave it a thought as a viable hobby for me. Once I found some KZbin channels, by accident, and learned it was possible, I thought I'd give it a try. I started with the Dwarf II. It was really cool to see galaxies appearing in the frame, but the quality was not great. I knew better was possible thanks to channels like this one, so I saved some money and got better gear. The smart telescope was my gateway drug. I cannot imagine the smart telescopes putting anyone out of business at this point. Someday, they may, but today is not that day in my opinion. I get the Orion emails, and I find that their marketing is lacking. It feels like a discount warehouse and not a place for "serious" amateurs. I knew of Meade. I'm old, so I knew of them as a quality brand. Once Orion bought them, I expected that they were going to become a past big name being produced with subpar components like many other brands bought by discount warehouse brands. The more I learn, the more I realize that was probably flawed, but I would imagine that I was not the only one who saw them that way. It's unfortunate. It's never good to have choices limited. Price gouging almost always follows (at least in the states it does). I half expect to see Celestron SCTs jumping in price in the near future.

[@MemeticsX]

I appreciate the info! Please fix your camera's shifting auto-focus, though; that made the video hard to watch.