Frustration and Disappointment Dealing with Meade

Well we learned a lot about Meade this week.

On Monday, according to Meade, the scope had to be sent back to be repaired, on Tuesday they needed a serial number to look up the scope's history, Wednesday we heard nothing, Thursday we got the word to pull it down and box it up and Meade was setting up trucking and on Friday Meade now claims they had a meeting and the Scope is fine and will work as-is, so they are doing nothing.

Apparently this quality of craftsmanship is OK with Meade,

after all it's just a telescope we spent a lot of money on, then installed it in a expensive Observatory and added another $4000.00 dollars purchasing a camera and focuser, so how precise does the telescope have to be? It's not like they are building Swiss watches.

If I have my way, this will be the one and only Meade telescope Murmur Creek Observatory will ever mount on it's pier.

The only bright spot Thursday was this view out the dome.

Lester showed up early and we got to work. It took about an hour and we had it carefully lowered into the shipping box, not an easy job inside the dome,. After binding up the box I pulled the stair railing off along with one side wall to make a path out as wide as I could. Our plan was to load it in my truck and drive it into town on whatever day the trucking company is coming to pick it up.

With today's news I now have to unpack and reinstall the scope on the pier, but it's getting harder to find strong backs and weak minded helpers that still answer their phones.

I did get a start on the warm room in between rain showers, photos to come later this weekend, but I just had to bitch about Meade first.