Meade Ds2090 Ongoing Review

[speedwerksrc]

Hello everyone. I was asked by Admin to compile a review of the Meade DS2090 as I use it more. I am going to start this review from the unpacking and assembling page and work it out from there viewing session to viewing session. If anyone has any questions as this review progresses, feel free to ask. All I ask is that any negative, harsh or derogatory comments towards this scope are kept out of this thread. We all know this is not a 500 to 1000 dollar scope. It is a entry level 90mm refractor. It will not compare with the more expensive refractors.

Upon initial unpacking of the scope, everything was boxed extremely well. Each component was in its own box wrapped in plastic and supported by cardboard inserts. In areas where space needed to be filled, there were empty boxes to keep the product boxes from shifting around during transport and shipping.

The telescope came with the following items:
Tripod with motor already attached and assembled
Tray with slots
Autostar Box w/ cable
5 eyepieces
Compass
Laser Object Finding Scope
Manual
Informational and Instructional DVD

Assembling is a breeze with this scope. I did not even need to open the instruction manual. Just looking at the pieces is enough to realize what goes where. The only key thing I can point out is to make sure when mounting the actual scope body you pay attention to make sure you have the body facing the correct way in the mount. If this is not done right, the scope will not slew properly and will not have full az/alt capabilities. You will realize this very fast if you did it incorrectly.

I inserted the required 8 AA batteries into the battery compartment and connected them to the motor. The connection terminal is exactly that found on anything requiring a 9v battery. Then I connected the cable from the autostar to the motor housing. No batteries are needed inside the autostar box as it recieves it power from the motor housing. Upon initial power, the autostar turned on and displayed the obvious "looking at the sun through a telescope will kill you" message. It autotested itself and went through a small test phase slewing the motor in the az/alt directions and initialized the pre-installed software. I was then prompted to enter my zipcode, time, date and daylight savings observance information. I did these things, and it went through another small test phase and I was good to go. However, I did not gave any conditions in the sky to get this outside the first night. I decided to orient myself more with the features and operation of the scope.

Fast forward to 2nd night.

After battling the focus adjustment a little before dark, I was able to grasp the concept of focusing the scope on a certain terrestrial object. It's not that it is difficult, it is just a little confusing. Making sure your spotting scope is properly aligned to the telescope is very important with the focusing on this scope. You may think your on the object from the spotting scope, but could spend hours focusing the main telescope on nothing. Once figured out, the scope focuses on the object with no problem and absolute ease. 5 stars for simple focus.

My next step was to make sure the scope was level and pointing north. Using the supplied compass that came with the scope, this was a breeze. The compass fits inside the housing that the eyepiece mounts in. Once making sure that the scope was level by centering the bubble inside the circle on the compass, I was able to point the scope due north. I found this is much easier by simply rotating the tripod as opposed to using the motor to rotate the scope. The north heading is the starting point required by the autostar for the GoTo software to accurately slew to different objects. Once the heading was attained, I prompted the autostar to align itself. It did this by choosing 2 stars and slewing to them and asking you to press enter if they appear inside the eyepiece. If you cannot see the star, or an object is obstructing your view, a simple press of the scroll down arrow will prompt AutoStar to choose another alignment star. After completing the alignment, the telescope is set for viewing. I had 2 options. I could run through a database organized by category, and choose from there, or there is a Tonights Best Guided Tour. I chose tonights best as a first run on the scope. I do not remember what was in there as I was more concerned in fine tuning my skills at dialing in the focus on the scope and learning more features. I just let it scan the sky and made sure things were showing up in the scope, which they were, and went to the next. The amount of stars not viewable to the naked eye that appeared in the scope were up to par with my expectations. I did have to zoom the scope onto a lightpost to dial in the laser sight one more time to pinpoint certain stars to manually zoom in on as i knocked it out of alignment by accident. I decided to call it a night when my eyes fatigued and I became chilly. I did not anticipate being out as long a I was last night.

I will report more findings later on tonight as I am heading outside armed with a star chart, the AutoStar System, and my NightSky Field Atlas in a few minutes. I will make sure to put on a sweatshirt tonight and stay out with this a while tonight as the weather is looking good for viewing tonight.

[philip d]

Thanks speedwerksrc thats an awesome review!

Can you post any pictures?

thanks!

[admin]

"the autostar turned on and displayed the obvious "looking at the sun through a telescope will kill you" message"

LMAO thats funny! :P

[speedwerksrc]

Originally Posted by philip d

Thanks speedwerksrc thats an awesome review!

Can you post any pictures?

thanks!

Sure thing. I will take some today and get them posted later on. I will try to make a little youtube video also of the scope slewing and everything else.

[speedwerksrc]

Originally Posted by admin

"the autostar turned on and displayed the obvious "looking at the sun through a telescope will kill you" message"

LMAO thats funny! :P

Lol. It says it on the bottom of every single page in the manual. So it may as well just say it once in big bold letters its going to kill you. Then they can get more room to make sure they tell you to align the reddot scope.

[admin]

every page? wow... a lot of people must have pointed it into the sun over the years lol.

How did the night watch go speed? How accurate was the Goto? Did you see many objects? Was everything sharp ie stars, moon, no artifacts?

thanks for the awesome review.

[speedwerksrc]

Originally Posted by admin

every page? wow... a lot of people must have pointed it into the sun over the years lol.

How did the night watch go speed? How accurate was the Goto? Did you see many objects? Was everything sharp ie stars, moon, no artifacts?

thanks for the awesome review.

The watch went well. The Goto was accurate with its coordinates, the stars were very sharp, there was a decent amount of light pollution in the area I was viewing in so I was not able to see everything I wanted to see, but that can be fixed by travelling a few miles out of town to the local observatory area. The moon is not visible in my area right now but as soon as it is I will be checking it out and hopefully by that time i will have the meade imager so I can follow up with pictures so people can see the clarity and quality of what the 2090 has to offer. I will add some pictures of the telescope and some video of it slewing tommorow. Stay tuned as the review will become more in depth as I am starting to really understand the workings of this scope. I am working currently on having it track satellite passes and am getting close to getting a near perfect tracking pattern on the passes.

[speedwerksrc]

I recieved the autostar suite and deepsky imaging camera today and will be playing around with this tonight. I will be uploading pictures of the telescope along with some images I am able to attain tonight using the imaging camera. I am going to try to get at least some good ones. There is a good deal of light pollution in my backyard so I will see what I can attain using this. Stay tuned for another update on the review of the telescope and now a review on the scope and deepsky imager and autostar suite.

[philip d]

thanks for the update. im eagerly awaiting the pics and video! I havent heard too much about this scope but speed has been great in getting me up to speed

thanks speed

[speedwerksrc]

Originally Posted by philip d

thanks for the update. im eagerly awaiting the pics and video! I havent heard too much about this scope but speed has been great in getting me up to speed

thanks speed

No problem philip. I have been a little off in updating this due to a few things going on. I just wanted to let everyone know that due to the Deep Space Imager software not being compatible with windows vista, I had to return that to the store so the imager is a no-go. I am pretty irritated by that. On another note, I came home with a MySky. For those who dont know what that is, it is a GPS Astronomy Locater which is basically point and shoot and it identifies what you are pointing at, and also functions as a controller for the AutoStar taking place of the basic controller which came with the scope. Now, the fun will begin. The software that came with the MySky IS VISTA COMPATIBLE. So, I will now be doing my review on both the MySky and the DS-2090. I am free all day today so I will be adding up the pictures of the scope, and pictures of the mysky. Sorry to let everyone down on the Imaging System, but I am working with a friend to create a mount allowing me to mount my DSLR camera to the telescope and use that for imaging. When we have fine tuned the design, I will let everyone know how we accomplished it in case anyone is interested in doing it themselves. I will give everyone a hint now: it involves a piece of pvc, and a replacement lens mount. I will give the rest as the project advances. Stay tuned as the pictures will be up soon