Meade Polaris 76AZ-P Telescope

That is the buzz word of our century. It applies here right down to the last letter. Stay away from these cheap Chinese made scopes! The problem with most telescopes is they always show beautiful pictures of the solar system and Planets on the box promising incredible views of them while delivering high magnification or power. The truth is anything over 50x the aperture in inches is beyond the optics ability to resolve. For this scope, that means anything over 150x magnification is pointless. (3" x 50 = 150 power), and this is when the atmosphere is at its best! Consider most amateurs view the skies at low power, that is, anything between 25x and 75x. Over 100x and this is starting to get into higher magnification. This isn't my rule, it is the rule of optics!
I'm what you would call a hobbyist. I'm into a number of hobbies, one of which is making telescopes and mirrors. I help out with the grinding, polishing and figuring of mirrors. After this process, they are coated with aluminum in a vacuum chamber called Bell Jars. I have personally made and built a 6", 8" and 10" telescope.
My nephew gave me this scope one day because he couldn't see anything through it. I spent countless hrs. making a more rigid tripod, collimating the primary and secondary mirrors just trying to see something through it. After taking out the 3" primary and putting it on the Foucault tester (a set-up designed to measure any aberrations on the surface of the mirror), it came to my attention that the mirror had severe astigmatism on it. The next step was to re-polish and remove this aberration. Although this was accomplished with many hrs of figuring by hand, or should I say fingers, it became apparent that the astigmatism was part of the glass. In other words, the glass was defective! The image seen after tweaking this mirror was better but still unacceptable. There were lots of streaks and glare coming from bright objects such as the Moon and Jupiter. On Saturn, the rings could barely be seen and not with any detail at all.
I had also made a rocker type base for it such as what is found on Dobsonian type telescopes. All this was for nothing but was intended to try and fix something that wasn't fixable.
With cheap telescopes comes H designated eyepieces. These are Huygens and are the cheapest of all eyepieces. They usually come in the .960 size which further highlights the lack of quality in these toys. The standard size is 1 1/4" eyepiece with prices ranging up to $600 US!! How can you expect a low grade eyepiece to perform?
I have since made him a 4 1/4" Newtonian telescope on a Dobsonian mount.
In short, stay away from cheap telescopes. These types will only frustrate you and turn you away from a very rewarding experience. I've paid up to $3,000.00 for a telescope only to take it apart and make the primary mirror perfect. Telescopes are precision instruments requiring extra hrs of figuring. If a $3,000 one isn't perfect, how can you expect to have one that performs for $100? If it does, trust me that it is only because of coincidence. These 3" mirrors are made on a machine only, as anything done by hand would incur additional costs.
I'm leaving you with a very strong piece of advice. Before buying any telescope, ask if there is an Astronomy Club in your city or area. They would be glad to show or steer you in the right direction. The Web has a tremendous amount of info you can surf through. Do take the time to read reviews. This alone will save you lots of frustration and money wasted on an instrument that is considered junk.
An excellent web site to browse in for telescopes reviews and comparisons is www.scopereviews.com
Happy stargazing!

Richard Guenette.