Meade Instruments 216004 Polaris 114 EQ Reflector Telescope (Blue)

Product Specifications

• Aperture: 114mm(4.5”). Focal Length: 1000mm. Focal Ratio: f/8.8. Rack-and-Pinion Focuser, Setting Circles, Latitude Control w/Scale
• Large, stable German Equatorial mount with slow motion controls makes tracking celestial objects smooth and simple
• Low (26mm), medium (9mm), and high (6.3mm) magnification eyepieces give you variety for any viewing situation & 2x barlow lens doubles the magnifying power of each eyepiece
• Red dot viewfinder helps you point your scope at objects you want to observe & accessory tray stores accessories while observing

• Includes Astronomical Software and Instructional DVD

  Product Description

Style:Polaris 114 EQ Reflector Telescope Product Description Developed for beginner and amateur astronomers, the Meade Polaris Series delivers an experience that will have you looking to the skies for many nights to come. Combining an equatorial mount and quality optics with superb value, the Meade Polaris refracting and reflecting telescopes are your gateway to the cosmos.

The Polaris 114 reflecting telescope is great for beginners and amateurs who want to discover more. With a 114mm (4.5”) aperture size, the Polaris 114 will deliver bright, clear images for the aspiring astronomer to enjoy. Whether you’re viewing the Moon, planets, or deep-sky objects such as nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters, the view through the Polaris 114 will keep you looking up for a long time.

Pros: A larger aperture to get a better view of deep-sky objects

Once polar aligned, the equatorial mount allows you to locate and track celestial objects because it rotates with the Earth, instead of the up-down left-right directions of an altazimuth mount

Cons: Reflecting telescopes won’t produce right-side up images, so terrestrial viewing is limited

Q: How is this telescope different than other Polaris models (127, 90, 80, etc)? A: The differences between each model are aperture size and telescope type. The bigger the aperture, the more light-gathering power the telescope will have, resulting in brighter, detailed images. The Polaris 114, 127, and 130 are reflecting telescopes, meaning they use mirrors to produce an image. The Polaris 70, 80, and 90 are refracting telescopes, which use lenses to produce an image. The Polaris 114 has a 114mm aperture, the smallest aperture of the Polaris reflecting telescopes, but larger than the Polaris 70, 80, and 90 refracting telescopes.

From the Manufacturer Meade Polaris 114 German Equatorial Reflector Telescope comes complete with everything you need to view the wonders of the night sky the first time out. 114mm (4.5”) Reflecting Telescope delivers bright and detailed images that is perfect for viewing celestial objects. Features a larger stable equatorial mount with slow motion controls that makes it easy to track celestial objects as they move across the night sky. Comes with 3 eyepieces that provide low, medium and high powered magnification for viewing a wide range of objects (Moon, planets, or deep-sky). Bonus Autostar Suite Astronomy planetarium DVD with over 10,000 celestial objects (Windows PC only). One Year Warranty.

Product Reviews

130mm Meade Polaris (Great grab and go scope, if you don’t mind a little weight.

To start with if you’re new to the world of telescopes, this scope is great just as it is right out of the box for visual astronomy. It comes with everything you need, detailed instructions, eyepeices, tripod, and everything else in the description. Literally, but for those who are more centered on optical quality, and mechanical performance, I will touch on this telescopes more fine tuned pros and cons as I see them. This is probably a long boring review but seriously this is a great telescope and I reccomend it for any newcomer to astronomy who is interested in learning to use German Equatorial Mounts. I would give it four stars for the cheap eyepieces that Meade by “standard” provides with all their small scopes, and the finder scope that barely stays on target (discovered way to fix it). I got this mainly for the scope (wide field observations/astrophotographs, but don’t worry about what I do with it) and the excellent equatorial mount. The mount has an RA gear for a motor, but don’t get confused and think that you can make this a GoTo setup. The gear is only for the RA axis (motor not included) mono directional tracking. Albeit the reason there is a camera adapter on the focuser.Pros:-The tripod is feather light, and mostly sturdy. Wobbles a lot under heavier loads. Does have some damp time (time before shaking stops after bumping).-The equatorial mount is quite precise, and doesn’t wobble much.-The RA and DEC adjustment knobs are large and chunky, very easy to grip and turn.-The core cables connecting the knobs to the mount are made of actual steel covered in a plastic sheath, so they are very strong and flexible.-Collimation is relatively easy, once set properly is near perfect.-The optical quality and light transmission of the scope itself is excellent. very nice contrast. According to the specs this scope has a silicon dioxide coated mirror that prevents any light reflectivity degradation.-The locking screws for the RA and DEC adjustments are easy to find without having to look for them in the dark, plus they securely hold the telescope in place.-Also the OTA saddle plate locking screw has a rubber end so it holds the telescope in place firmly with out gouging out the aluminum or pretty blue paint finish. That changed once I put the scope on other mounts.-I should put this under cons but this scope and the equatorial mount is a bit heavy for a grab and go scope, if that’s what you’re using it for. But I do not consider this a con because weight is just–expected. In total I weighed it at about 13 kilograms (28.66lbs) with a heavier eyepeice and finderscope.Cons:-Well the eyepieces are definitely the cheapest I’ve ever seen, but it’s typical since this is a “beginners scope,” should have at least one good Plössl.-The viewfinder with mine would lock into place firmly, but did not stay on target for more than a few observing sessions. I tried pretty much everything to hold it in place but I just tossed it and stuck it on a refractor. So I replaced it. Later I found out that the top horizontal adjustment screw needed tightening and it stayed on target.-The Rack-and-Pinion focuser wobbles a little, under higher magnification. I replaced it with Orion’s 2” Crayford style focuser, I know it’s a bit large, and required modification to the telescope. But I was very satisfied with it in the end though. But rebalancing the telescope was a bit difficult as the Crayford focuser I bought for it was heavy–all metal parts. I added an extra counterweight. This modification is not necessary for the casual observer. I replaced the focuser so that on my other autotracker mounts a T adapter would not interfere with the focal length, plus I can lock it. Under normal circumstances the focuser provided with this telescope is just fine. I used helicoid grease to make it more steady, and tightened the screws a bit and put it on another telescope.-Also when unfolding the tripod, I put my hand in the middle of the accessory tray supports and pushed down. That was a bad mistake because it pinched my hand and cut me pretty bad, so just as a heads up don’t make that same mistake.-The scope tube is large enough to hold a 150mm mirror, but it is what it is.-Not made in USA-Oh and the Barlow lens is just substandard. If you can get a Barlow lens from Celestron, or afford a Powermate or Orion’s Barlows do it. Trust me the one with this telescope has pretty obvious chromatic aberrations, especially when viewing the moon. Barlows really are for magnification, but be careful not to get too powerful of a Barlow lens. Too much power won’t reveal any more detail and the image will be fuzzy.All in all this is my favorite grab and go scope. With my modifications I can use most 2” format eyepieces. I had to get a 2” extension for the Crayford focuser because it had too much back travel for visual observation. The modifications I made are purely performance oriented and are again, not necessary for the casual observer. I would definitely recommend this telescope to beginners. Also the TeleVue 40mm Plossl goes great with this scope as it is about the limit of a true wide field for a 130mm telescope. Personally the best combo with this telescope would be a good quality 26mm eyepiece because it’s more affordable and works well. The equatorial mount has a gear on it for a motor tracking system, I found one on the Meade website listed as a Polaris Motor Drive. Also, I put helicoid grease on the RA gear to make for smooth tracking. Synthetic lubricants work great to. I do wish that this scope had internal baffles, but the black paint coating inside the tube seems to do a sufficient job at minimizing internal reflections. Besides for a beginners scope it has excellent contrast. This scope has a decent focal ratio- f/5, perfect for viewing star clusters and faint deepsky objects with a nice wide field of view. I was able to see the Veil nebula quite easily under dark skies, just as a point of reference. Happy stargazing!Update: I just got around to installing the astro-star software, it’s – okay, but not the best one out there for beginners. Orion’s Starry Night Special Edition software is good for both the beginner and novice, but personally Celesteons Sky X First Light software is really better because it has a more complete deep sky database. It’s very easy to use, and comes with an autostar suite with the ASCOM platform and lalalala the usual stuff. Some others can be downloaded for Android or iPad, they really work great. Though I not sure why ASCOM comes with the software, this telescope doesn’t have GoTo functions. ASCOM is for interfacing telescope slew functions through a computer via planetarium software or other. It works great but you need a GoTo mount.Update: I included a picture of my modification. The most important one is the picture showing the RA needle. The RA setting circle showing the position telescope is pointing was not working right (moving regardless of the position of the locking screw), I discovered that there was a flaw in the metal itself. A flaw I couldn’t fix without disassembling the mount. So in the picture you can see that I drilled two holes on the plastic behind the indicator and mounted the needle to it. Now there are no more issues. It is a simple fix that only requires a drill to correct. After that I could set the circle and then dial in object positions accurately.

Surprisingly good package for such a low price.

I’m taking a college Astronomy class and bought this as a last minute tool while on a VERY restricted budget. I have a little bit of previous experience with home telescopes but am a definite amateur. Telescopes can be very expensive and serve rather specialized purposes, but most people who want to buy their first telescope really don’t know what they want, need something that’s a good compromise in many areas so they can dabble and see what they like most in astronomy, and need something that wont break the bank in case they really don’t get into observing much. The Meade Polaris 130 fits all those requirements and delivers a solid tool that (with a couple small upgrades) could serve well for a lifetime. I was surprised to find that most parts are metal and fairly sturdy. The scope’s tube is steel. The EQ mount is heavy cast steel. The tripod legs are fairly thick steel tubing. The mirror is parabolic (which is a good thing, and somewhat surprising considering how cheap this package is). The aperture size of 130mm (5”) is big enough to actually capture light to see many things in the night sky. The focuser is OK, it’s built well with smooth action though it’s a tad coarse, so at higher powers it can get a little tricky. The red dot finder that comes with this feels very cheap, yet it works very well and is easy to align with the scope and does a good job pointing the scope at objects. The EQ mount combined with the tripod is pretty sturdy for such a cheap package and is an important consideration as some cheap scopes really suffer in this area. The tripod comes pre-assembled so you just spread the legs, screw on the EQ mount, and then mount the scope. You certainly need to watch some videos to understand how to use an EQ mount if you haven’t used one in the past, but it really boils down to pointing the scope at Polaris, locking down the main mounts solid, and then allowing the RA and Dec pivots to move freely so you can point the scope at other objects, and at that point you can track the object through its arcing path with a simple turn of a knob. It’s well worth learning. In use, it does take some practice but after a couple hours of use it becomes pretty intuitive. The scope comes with 3 eyepieces and a barlow (2x multiplier) that are the weakest components in this package. The 26mm and 9mm are OK for starting out, but the 6mm is just about useless. These eyepieces will get you up and running but suffer from significant distortion from center to edge and are just not terribly clear. The very first upgrade you’ll want for this scope would be some decent Plossl eyepieces. The scopes end cap dust cover can serve as a moon filter by popping out a small plug to restrict most incoming light when viewing a large bright moon. As for viewing with the included eyepieces you can certainly see a lot of great lunar details. You can see Jupiter and her moons and should be able to make out the colored bands, though with limited clarity. You can easily pick up many clusters and nebulae with the lower powered eyepieces if you learn where to look (get a star chart and/or download Stellarium for PC and StarChart for your mobile device). Try working through a list like the Messier program to give you an idea of what you should target. The scope will vibrate a small bit during focusing so you have to make small estimated focusing changes and wait just a short moment for it to settle but this is not unusual in a small cheap scope and mount. Overall, I think this scope is a great value that is well-built for the sub-200 price tag. Its weak eyepieces are typical of a cheap scope and you can’t blame the manufacturer as very nice eyepieces can cost more than this entire package… they gave you something to get started with (some expensive scopes do not even come with an eyepiece as people prefer to chose their own) and you’ll be doing the right thing when you buy one or more nicer eyepieces (Plossl’s will start as low as $30/each) to upgrade this and enhance your observing experience for many years to come.

Probably not the best for beginners, but it’s not bad

This telescope is great for viewing the moon as well as the sun (with proper filters of course) I’ve only used it a few times, mostly due to weather as well as a lack of objects…

Two Stars

you get what you pay for

But I just recently acquired this telescope and I am very happy with it

This is the first telescope I’ve owned. My old man was totally into the astronomy scene when I was younger so I have the most basic understanding of terminology in the subject.

for starter this scope is great for beginner

for starter this scope is great for beginner. Easily seeing Saturn, Jupiter. Nebular, not quite yet because I believe a higher power lens is needed.

Five Stars

Yes my fiancé love it😘😘🔭🔭

Shoot for the stars!

Wonderful telescope and very easy to use!

Telescope is great. Until you need to collimate….

Decent telescope…… until you have to collimate it….Bought this telescope to see the planets and the moon.

Stargazing

Wonderful for first time user.

One Star

Complete fail by meade will never buy a meade again.

It was pretty good right out of the box and I used …

I purchased this scope last May (2016) and have gotten to know it quite well over the past year. It was pretty good right out of the box and I used it for moon and planet…

Get it at Amazon

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