Meade Polaris 127 EQ Reflector Telescope: Not Recommended
The Good
- •PORTABLE
The Bad
- •CHEAP ACCESSORIES
- •LOW QUALITY OPTICS
- •SHAKY BASE
Polaris 127 is equipped with cheap mirrors and an awful corrector lens.
Summary Review
Meade Polaris 127 seemed very promising considering its very successful big brother Polaris 130. But unfortunately, they are not alike at all. Just save your money and don’t buy this telescope.
The main problem with Meade 127 is that they tried to create a Bird-Jones telescope and failed miserably. For a Bird-Jones telescope to work well it needs to be executed perfectly. Meade, sadly, couldn’t achieve this goal.
Bird-Jones Diagram
To keep the cost down Meade used a spherical primary mirror. A primary mirror introduces several problems such as spherical aberrations. They used a corrective lens to solve this but the “corrective lens” doesn’t correct the image. If anything it introduces more defects with the image.
Polaris 127 is a poorly done catadioptric.
Adding to that the telescope is really hard to collimate since it has a corrective mirror. Collimation is an important process for a telescope that needs to be done frequently. So that alone should convince you that you shouldn’t buy this telescope.
The mount and the tripod are not good at all. They are simply not sturdy enough to provide a stable observation. Adding to that an equatorial mount is not beginner-friendly. If you are a beginner you should go for simpler mounts such as Dobsonian’s and alt-azimuths.
The red dot finder is a standard among budget telescopes and works well. But with optics as bad as Meade Polaris 127’s, there won’t be much need for it.
The focuser and other accessories that come with the telescope are the same as Meade Polaris 130 and they are OK. But as said before if the optical tube itself is garbage, you can’t really save the telescope with anything. Even the most expensive eyepiece won’t give you a good view with Meade Polaris 127.
Just don’t buy this telescope. Please save a little more and get a Meade Polaris 130. It is much better in almost every way.