Meade 20220 Ngc-70tc Self Guided Altazimuth Refractor Telescope - Silver

by Meade

Product Details

• Item Weight: 21 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 33 pounds
• ASIN: B000F446QA
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,112 in Office Products (See Top 100 in Office Products)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 9, 2004

Product Description

Meade Engineers have thoroughly updated the traditional entry-level telescope with a computer-controlled altazimuth mount, perfect for observing the Moon, planets and land objects like mountains, trees and wildlife. These New Generation telescopes incorporate advanced industrial design yielding a striking, ultra modern appearance. THe NGC-70TC includes the significant performance advantage of a built-in computer finding system with manual slow motions controls. The included full length tripod is strong and steady enough to use the higher powered eyepiece effectively. The images are resolved rightside up & laterally reversed. The included Red Dot finderscope assists in initial object locating and a software package which operates with Windows-based PC's is included as well.Meausres: 52H x 36W x 30.38 D" Features include: NGC-70 2.8"/70mm Achromatic Refractor Telescope - Motorized Self Guided Altazimuth Mount with 1,400 Object Library - Red Dot Finderscope - 1.25" 90° Diagonal - 1.25" Super Plossl 4000 Eyepieces: 9.7mm & 26mm - CD-ROM Software - Aluminum Full Size Tripod - Instructonal DVD - Meade One-Year Warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good starter scope. If you know what you are getting., October 19, 2009

By 

Mathew D. Pedersen (San Marcos, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Meade 20220 Ngc-70tc Self Guided Altazimuth Refractor Telescope - Silver (Electronics)

The Meade NGC-70TC is a great starter scope, even with all the bad hype people have said about. The scope is a f/10 refractor, which means false color is minimized, (the only time I noticed any purple glow was when I was looking at the moon).

When you have a small scope like this planets and rich field deep sky objects are good targets. A few of the really amazing objects are the Pleiades Cluster, Caldwell 013 (NGC 457), and the Double Cluster, (use the 25 mm eyepiece). With this scope I saw 2 bands on Jupiter. Please be aware objects will not look like they do in the books or on the internet.

The "goto" is really just digital setting circles, in that it will tell you where to point the telescope at to see the object. This worked fairly well with the exception of originally aligning the telescope. You will need a star chart (or a computer with the included software) to make sure of the star you are suppose to align on. My girlfriend who has never used a telescope before learned how to use it on the second night of use, (now she has viewed 23 of the messier objects and is working on the other 87 objects with this scope).

As I have stated in my title this is a great scope as long as you understand what you are getting. If you are looking for a scope that will teach you where stuff is at in the night sky, this is the scope for you. If you are looking for a scope that does all the thinking for you then you need to look at Meade's new ETX-LS, (the review will soon follow).

Thanks and may your sky's be clear.
Mat P.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good for starters, August 6, 2009

By 

Ganapathy Kumar "Mindhacker" (Cookeville,Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Meade 20220 Ngc-70tc Self Guided Altazimuth Refractor Telescope - Silver (Electronics)

The Meade NGC 70-TC is a very good starter scope. Very easy to assemble in the first place. took me about fifteen minutes to put it in place as I'd already done the same for a Meade RB-60 (That model is awesome for starters!!!)The use of electronics in this scope was a bit unnecessary although I'm sure that first timers would love to fiddle with it. The arrangement of the electronics is a bit flimsy though. The optics is very good for an amateur to just start and learn about the night sky.

Dont expect to get a close view of the deep space objects and stuff as the ads claim. The maximum you can view with this scope is Saturn's rings and Titan. Jupiter is also quite clear. I was pleasantly surprised that the moon was very very clear through this scope with the shadows around the craters seen clearly.

The altazimuth arrangement was a bit loose at first but watching the bundled dvd was of great help to help in troubleshooting and adjusting.Overall, this is a good starter scope.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Value, January 8, 2010

By 

CM Rater - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Meade 20220 Ngc-70tc Self Guided Altazimuth Refractor Telescope - Silver (Electronics)

My 5 stars is relative to the fact that we paid $[...] for this scope. For the money it was a great value! It delivered the WOW from our 6 year old grandson. We we able to set up very quickly and great some close ups of the moon right away.