I decided a few weeks ago to pick up one of the current offerings that Meade has in introductory scopes, the Infinity 60. I did a search on eBay and found one that was being sold by one of the vendors as "refurbished." There really is not a setup for refurbishing these scopes, considering they are one of the most inexpensive scopes one can buy. I inquired to see of there was anything going on with the Infinity 60 that would cause a defect that someone could fix and then put back out for sale. The reply that I got back was that there were no issues with the Infinity 60. Therefore, I made the purchase on eBay for the "refurbished" scope for $53, delivered to my house.
When the scope arrived, what I found was that, somehow, a hole had been punched in the box, all the way through into the area where the optical tube was. There was plenty of space inside and the scope was undamaged. The refurbishment seemed to be someone putting a piece of thick shipping tape over the hole in the box.
It was a week or so until I could get to actually taking the scope out of the box and putting it together. It took, at most, five minutes to open up the tripod, install the little triangular pan that you put lenses on, install the optical tube in the fork mount, get the eyepieces and 2X Barlow out, etc. I did not need to use any kind of tools, just my fingers, to put it together.
I had just a few minutes outside with it, before clouds moved in completely, but I did manage to take a look at the Moon. I found the scope to be sharp as a tack. The diagonal that comes with it is what is known as an Amici, which is has a correct image prism in it, so the image is not only right side up, but left and right are correct, rather than being reversed. The two eyepieces are 26 and 9mm MA (three element achromatic eyepieces), which is better than the standard Huygens (two element eyepieces) that normally come with a scope like this. It has the same red dot finder that other Meade entry level scopes have. Inside the box is a disk with the AutoStar program that can show a star map on a computer. I have not looked at exactly what comes on this disk yet, but I will at least look at its files, in case there is anything else of interest.
Giving the Moon a quick look before the clouds rolled in, the 26mm view was nice and crisp with good contrast. The 9mm view was also nice and will be good for someone actually studying the moon. Putting in the Barlow with the 9mm eyepiece, gives the equivalent of a 4.5mm eyepiece. This last combination gives a view that is at the very ragged edge of what the scope can do with the Moon, or may actually be going a bit far. However, I think all the information that can be gleaned from any particular crater can be gained with this combination. Some contrast is lost and the image is big enough that you can see the end of the resolution capabilities of the scope. I do not think the magnification was so great that any actual detail was lost.
I will do more with this scope "as-is," right out of the box and will report back as replies to this post. Right now, I am very pleased and impressed with the product and think it is well worth the money in comparison to what I have experienced from other 60mm refractors that I have purchased. In fact, though I will need to check it out more to verify this, this is probably the best little refractor I have purchased, straight out of the box.
Bill Steen