Meade LightBridge 8 in. (500 x 203mm) Telescope

The Meade light bridge is one telescope I have had a lot of experience with. The 8 inch LightBridge is the first Dobsonian type telescope that I actually liked. Most Dobsonian telescopes rely on a hollow tube which made moving one of these monsters around nearly impossible without a specially built and expensive dolly and for all practical purposes made them a park it and leave it type telescope. Some of the smaller ones where somewhat manageable, but they lacked the power needed to really reach into the heavens, but the LightBridge changed all that. Its simple take apart design made moving the telescope easy and re-assembly once practiced a few times is almost second nature. In fact, one can be pulled down and re-assembled in less than 15 minutes and workable within 30 minutes.

Several friends had different sizes of this telescope and before buying one I had the opportunity to learn its quirks and practice with them. The 8 inch is by far the least expensive of the LightBridge models, and it packs plenty of wallop for the buck. They are currently under 400 dollars which is nearly 54% less than they were a year ago, and they are far improved from the first models. The Deluxe models all come with steel ball bearings instead of nylon bearings and moving the telescope to point to a new part of the sky can be done with a fingertip and virtually no effort. It has nice locking features which will hold the telescope at whatever angle you place it, and the eyepieces are vastly improved with a gasket system instead of the old screw in place systems on most telescopes. This saves you eyepieces from un-needed scratches and accidental damage from dents from an over tight screw. The gaskets hold the eye-pieces in place extremely well without light loss around the tube.

The magnification is about 500 X, but telescopes don't really rely on magnification as modern binoculars do. They rely on the ability to gather light and focus it in a concentrated point to create the image. The LightBridge does this very well with some of the finest mirrors on the commercial market.

The eyepiece is set up to accept either the 1.25 inch with an adapter or the 2 inch size eyepieces. Focusing is easy with very nice, smooth, controls and once locked onto your piece of sky, staying on target is effortless as the control knobs allow for quick adjustments and the tube moves without jarring, something not seen before in other tube scopes.

The one draw back is the open supports will let light pollution in but is solved with the purchase of a 40 dollar shroud. The shroud attaches with velcro and also keeps the night dew off your mirrors as an added bonus. An after market heating fan can be bought for non-light-pollution areas, but this is really not needed and the shroud is cheaper.

Some complain about reflected light from the trusses and sometimes the black mirror box, but this is mostly been from people viewing in the city where stray light can not be ruled out and probably reflects into the viewing area from sources and angles one could only imagine. I live is a pretty isolated part of Kentucky so stray light is rare. Some flock the mirror box and put black foam rubber pipe insulation on the struts, but I never have had too and don't find the open box a problem ever, but I thought it should be brought to your attention.

You can see better than 50 galaxies even in city conditions with clarity as well as great views of the planets. A very Good BUY!