Meade Infinity 50mm AZ Refractor Telescope Review: A Wannabe
Infinity 50’s unusually low aperture makes it more of a toy than a real telescope.
6
- Grab-and-Go
- Low Price
- Cheap Eyepieces
- Low Power
- Plastic Mount
Summary Review
Meade Infinity 50 is the cheapest “real” telescope you can buy. It is OK to buy it but you should know that you will get a 40$ telescope after all.
This telescope is much better for viewing long distances on Earth rather than the night sky. It is extremely hard to focus on high magnifications. You will get images of the Moon, Rings of Saturn, Orion Nebula, and maybe a few star clusters. But unfortunately, that is it.
The only upside is that Rings of Saturn appear detailed. So if you are willing to pay 40$ just to see it, you can buy this telescope.
The only usable eyepiece is the 20mm.
There are three eyepieces included. A 20mm(30x), 12mm(50x) and a 4mm(150x). You won’t get any performance out of 12mm and 4mm eyepieces since they are too much power for a 50mm aperture telescope. The 20mm works OK. If you want to use this telescope to its full potential you should get high quality eyepieces. But those usually cost around 30-40$, almost as much as the telescope itself.
There is Barlow lens included which will double the magnification of any eyepiece. The red dot finder is works well.
The focuser is a rack-and-pinion. It is a standard accessory among budget telescopes and it works well. It has a size of 0.965” but there is a 1.25” adapter included.
The finder is annoyingly useless.
The tripod is shaky and since it has a narrow field of view it will be really hard for beginners to not lose sight of the object at high magnifications. The optical tube’s build quality is good though.
Do not expect something amazing out of this telescope. You might get disappointed. Its optics are the lowest power it can be. You might get it for your kids, but we would recommend paying 10$ more and getting a Celestron FirstScope or at least getting Meade 70.