"Craig Levine" wrote in message
...
This could be interesting. Based only on this announcement ,
http://www.meade.com/authdealers/ser...000_lowRes.pdf
, it *looks* like Meade is taking a serious run at Televue in the
eyepiece game. I notice that Meade has gone back to the 5-element
design for the Plossls (which makes it no longer a Plossl, but that's
splitting hairs). This is a Masuyama design (i.e. Takahashi LE
series), and this design is very good, though Meade describes theirs
as having a 60º apparent field of view vs. the standard 52º.

Looks very promising. If the 60 deg claim is true, that would be a nice
advantage vs typical "plossls". Wonder what the eye relief will be.


I also note the the current Meade 14mm UWA sells for about US$300 and
in the new series, the 14mm is US$100 cheaper.

This is great news. I own 4.7mm & 8.8mm UWAs and really like them. Got
them on a Meade buy 1, get 1 free deal a few years back. I also own a
Televue standard plossl 7.4mm. After using the 8.8 for a while and then
switching to the 7.4, one really appreciates how much nicer the wider
field and longer eye relief are. I feel like I have to squint to see anything
through the 7.4. (I'm not saying this is a fair price comparison, just
commenting upon how the UWA is a joy to use.)

About time we've seen some pricing actions from lower cost Chinese
manufacturing in the brand name eyepieces. You know manufacturing
cost is much lower, and I doubt there is little, if any, original R&D costs
to recover on these pieces.

Alan