This telescope is awesome. It is the best choice for beginners to astronomy. It is very affordable and gives you the best bang for your buck. This telescope can see Jupiter and it's 4 moons, saturn, mars, and Venus. Not to mention the moon. Also, you can see the andromeda galaxy and the Orion Nebula. Those are just the highlights. You can see much, much more! I highly recommend this thing to everyone who is curious of what's out there.

This was a Christmas gift for my 17-year-old son and he loves it. A few nights ago he showed me Saturn and we were both thrilled to discover that we could see the RINGS around Saturn! This has whet his appetite for space exploration and maybe even a bigger telescope.

I have this scope and a Meade Polaris 130 but this Infinity 90 gets more use. The Polaris 130 gathers more light and shows more stars at night, but the Infinity 90 is better for daytime viewing as well as viewing the moon and planets at night. It seems that the lenses in the Infinity 90 produce a higher resolution image than the mirrors in the Polaris 130.

If you're considering this for daytime use or just for looking at the moon then I would suggest a moon filter. Using a moon filter for daytime viewing allows you to enjoy longer viewing sessions without straining your eyes too much. A moon filter is almost a necessity for viewing the moon, otherwise your eyes will get overpowered.

This scope does show chromatic aberration under certain circumstances, notably when the image has high contrast sharp differences between light and dark. You'll see a violet fringe in some areas and a yellow fringe in others. More expensive apochromatic scopes will reduce the aberrations but I've used very expensive apochromatic (+ED glass) optics and they're better (and way more expensive), but even those may show chromatic aberration given the 'right' circumstances.

If you're predominately using the scope for daytime viewing and you want to point it downwards (because you're on a hill or mountain and want to look down) then you may consider alternative products. This scope can only point straight or upwards. You can turn it around on the tripod mount but then you can only point straight and down and the handle on the mount is then facing away from you. I've seen Vixen scopes with tripod mounts that can be pointed downwards and upwards but they're at least $ 100 more expensive than this scope.

I have an old webcam with a telescope adapter that I attached to this scope with which I shot attached moon picture. I did sharpen the image using a photo editor (GIMP). The webcam only has a 640x480 resolution but I think it does a decent job.

This is a very nice all-round telescope that will do a good job for both daytime and planetary/moon viewing at night.

This review is for the 102mm AZ. Why Amazon insists on putting reviews for all sizes of this scope in, is beyond me and not really helpful. I wonder if they do this for other products also, never really noticed. Anyway, backyard astronomy newbie here, and seeing as I live in a city environment with all kinds of light pollution and buildings, I wanted a good beginner scope that at least I'd be able to observe the moon and some planets well. I decided on a refractor and seeing as this was probably the biggest aperture scope I could find and afford, I went with the Meade 102.
The scope arrived in a couple days, triple packaged well. Assembly was easy, just attach tray to tripod, slow motion controls to mount , scope to mount and red dot finder to scope. All done with out the need of tools (used a quarter to tighten the slow motion control screws, as there's a Phillips head and a couple wrenches in the tool kit, but didn't need them) The only issue I had is the fact the scope is attached to the mount by one thumbwheel and screw only (even though there are two holes in the bracket on the scope) which shouldn't be a problem as long as you check the thumbwheel for tightness occasionally. It's secure enough when tight.
The red dot finder at first seemed to be sort of useless until lo and behold, I found the red dot. I lined it up outside in the daytime at first, getting to know how to use (don't forget to turn it off) it and have yet to "fine tune" it as the instructions say at night, where it should be easier using the moon instead of a tree trunk off in the distance. "Centering" in the scope is sort of easy, but the center of the finder seems to be a little subjective as you move your head. Oh well, figured I'm going to be starting out with the moon and Jupiter and whatever I can see during the day.
Trying to decide which type of mount to buy was an issue also. I was close to buying a scope with an EQ mount but now that I have one with an AZ mount I'm glad I got this one. It's up and down, back and forth (you can lock it from going sideways), which seems to be enough for a beginner, plus with the a little practice the slow motion controls (fine tuned up and down back and forth) ought to be enough to track objects. Trying to locate the north star in my area is generally a pain anyway, and if I get the point where I want to see deep space anything I'll either have take a trip or buy a bigger telescope.
The 3 eyepieces plus Barlow are a plus, and seem to me to be well made and good enough to start out on, but I did order a moon filter and a medium upgraded eyepiece just in case. Haven't played the dvd that comes with yet also, maybe there'll be something that'll help, maybe not.
Over all though, I'm pretty happy with this purchase. The telescope, tripod and mount are well made and solid. If you're a beginner like me, don't want to spend a ton of money, live in a light polluted area and just want to get your feet wet in this hobby, you cannot go wrong with this telescope.

This Meade Infinity 50 telescope is a fantastic entry-level telescope, whether you're getting it for your science-loving kid or for yourself (it's mine, all miiiiine!). I've never used a telescope before, despite a lifelong fascination with outer space, and this is so much fun! It came mostly-assembled already, and the remaining pieces were easy to put together. The instructions in the booklet were fairly clear, and I didn't have to use the included CD, but it's there if you need it. The only parts I had a little trouble with were:

- which way to put the eyepiece in for the last step in assembly (you want the little round hole to go right up against your eye), and
- adjusting the optical viewfinder to match the telescope. The instructions on this were fine, it was just more challenging than I expected, since every little nudge changed everything a lot.

Once I got it all together, this beauty is a joy to use. I love that it DOESN'T flip everything upside down like many telescopes, it just flips right-and-left, which is so much easier (IMO) to handle.

I wish it came with an actual storage case for the eyepieces and other accessories - for now, I'm just putting them in the small box they arrived in if I need to put this away in long-term storage. For short-term storage, the tripod does fold up nicely with the telescope still attached, so you can stick this in a closet without an issue, it just will use up more space than disassembling everything would.

I'm including a few photos I took (during the day) to give you an idea of the magnification of this telescope. I took them just by putting my iPhone up against the eyepiece, so they're NOT great quality, but it should help.

I'm very happy with this telescope, and am looking forward to using this to enjoy our upcoming "supermoon" and eclipse!

(I received a free sample of this product in exchange for testing, inspecting and reviewing it. I received no other compensation for my review and always give my honest and unbiased opinion of each product. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)