Meade LXD75 SN-8 AT 8047502 Telescope

My family went in together to get this telescope for my father for his birthday.  I was given a budget and put in charge of finding a good telescope.  After a crash course in telescopes (I didn't know much about them at the time),  and researching telescopes on the internet and talking with people in the field of astronomy.  This is the telescope that I came up with for my budget.  The telescope came in two box's, one for the optics tub and the other for the mount.  The optics tub was vary well packed and unlike the previous reviewer every thing seam to be intacked with no lose screws.  There was only some minor assembly required for the optics tube, such as the finder scope and such.  The mount required a little bit more assembly, but nothing that was to difficult.  The mount is fairly heavy at 45lbs and originally i thought this was a con, but I have since learned that this is a good thing as it holds the telescope steadier.  All total it was about 30 minibus to set every thing up.  Nether my dad or me had ever used a telescope before, so figuring out how to set up the home position for the telescope was interesting, but nun the less we figured it out and latter on that night we were using it with great success.  Even with a full moon and light pollution from the surrounding city we could see the cloud bands on Jupiter.  In the months following we have seen the rings around Saturn and various Nebula's and Galaxies.  The Autostar feature is unbelievable and vary helpful for novices such as us.  I would recommend using the three star alignment as opposed to the two stare as it is defiantly more accurate. Unlike the previous reviewer nothing was missing and there was no fixing for us (but I am going to check those screws for the drives).  We were happy with how it came packaged and have had no problems with it.  Since buying this telescope I have bought a much less expensive telescope for me and even though they are both from Meade there is diffidently a difference in quality, especially with the stand.  The cheaper stand is shaky and hard to use the fine adjustments, the LXD75 is rock solid.  The current price of the LXD75 8" is $1,099 and I know that not every one can afford that (I am currently trying to save money for this telescope for myself), but if you can swing it this is a good telescope.