Spotting Scope is hard to align. Some of the 4mm holes were not tapped all the way (luckily I am a Toolmaker and had a 4MM tap). The software crashed, the second DVD I received was unreadable, the third loaded after 4 attempts and immediately wiped out my Windows XP settings on the reboot. It took me 4 full days to recover, and only after cleaning out all references to The Software and Meade in the registry. Needless to say I will not try to reload. Nor will I attempt to contact Meade again. It took me a month to get through, and then only when I asked the operator to talk to the person in charge of CR. I spoke to a VP. It took almost 2 weeks to receive the third copy of the DVD which was "overnighted" to me, and ended up crashing my system. Needless to say, I am not a happy camper, but the telescope is nice.

Everything seems great with this telescope - quality, price, good for beginners. It is easy to use and the moon views are very nice. However, it is impossible to focus fine enough to see the rings of Saturn. You can see an oval shaped object, and, if you use your imagination, you can barely make out rings. This is just too frustrating for beginners. .