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The Meade Instruments Facility
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The Meade Irvine, California, facility is the largest and most advanced commercial telescope manufacturing operation
in the world. The Meade factory includes only the very latest in CNC (Computer
Numerically Controlled) glass- and metal-working machine tools, electron
beam vacuum coaters, and interferometric and laser-autocollimator optical
testing devices. Keeping up with modern optical technology is an expensive
process at Meade Instruments–but one which is absolutely vital to our continuing
world leadership in the production of serious astronomical instrumentation
for the knowledgeable amateur or for the school or university program.
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The Meade Instruments 161,000-sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Irvine, California. The company's observatory houses a Meade 16" LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with piggybacked 7" ED refractor.
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Over 90% of the materials and labor required to manufacture Meade 4"
through 7" ED apochromatic refractors, 6" through 16"
Starfinder reflectors, 3.5" through 16" Schmidt-Cassegrain,
Maksutov-Cassegrain telescopes, and many other products, are expended in
our Irvine factory: these Meade telescopes–including all of the optical
systems, coatings, machining, and fabrication of the mechanical and electronic
mounting systems–are truly designed and made in the USA.
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Meade astronomical telescopes and accessories are in high demand
throughout the world: you'll find Meade products sold in over
30 foreign countries through authorized Meade international distributors–in
fact the export market is one of the most rapidly growing areas of Meade
Instruments. Japan and Germany–countries well known for their technological
expertise–are strong purchasers of Meade telescopes and accessories, notwithstanding
the direct competition we face from numerous telescope manufacturers within
those countries.
This virtual tour of the Meade factory focuses on key areas that have made
the Meade reputation for quality, areas that separate Meade Instruments
from other telescope manufacturers.
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| Meade Optical Coating Facility |
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Enhanced Super Multi-Coatings (EMC): Included as standard
equipment on the correcting lenses of Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov-Cassegrain
models and on the front elements of Meade ED apochromatic objective
lenses, the deep-purple Super Multi-Coating produces the highest light transmission
of any antireflective coating in the industry.
At our Irvine coating facility Meade technicians use the latest electron
beam vacuum coating systems to deposit, at 550° F (290° C), the
hard, multi-layer chemistry of the EMC–a coating that perceptibly increases
image brightness and contrast. Seven 8" correcting plates or eighteen
4" APO objective lenses can be coated on one side simultaneously; the
plates or lenses are then automatically flipped internal to the vacuum system
to permit coating of the opposite surfaces.
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EMC super multi-coating deposition in the optical coatings room.
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CNC coring of SC primary mirrors.
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SC Primary Mirror Central Coring; Objective Lens Shaping:
Before a Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain primary mirror can be polished and figured
to within exacting optical tolerances, the central perforation, or core,
of each mirror blank must be precision diamond-ground into the blank. In
the Meade optical shaping department this operation is performed on a 5-axis
CNC glass-machining center. The result is a mirror perforation (ready to
accept the primary mirror baffle and focusing mechanism) that is within
arc minutes of perfection–a perfection that, with minor final adjustment
by optical alignment technicians, virtually eliminates
mechanically induced aberrations in the Schmidt optics. The same CNC 5-axis
machining center is used to diamond-mill the surface of each Meade APO objective
lens surface; the lens blank is then automatically flipped, edged, and the
reverse surface similarly diamond generated-to-radius.
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Polishing and Hand Figuring: After a Schmidt-Cassegrain, Maksutov-Cassegrain,
ED/APO, or Newtonian glass surface is generated to radius and fine
ground, the mirror or lens is placed on an inverse-matched-radius pitch
tool for polishing, a process that can require up to a continuous 16 hours
or more. This polishing procedure returns the glass to full transmission
or reflectivity, with all optical radii now very near their final values.
It is at this point that Meade master opticians perform the final lens or
mirror shaping (a process called figuring). In the case of Meade
Schmidt-Cassegrains and Maksutov-Cassegrains, each optical set is individually
hand-figured to reach an optical null. Each apochromatic lens and Newtonian
parabolic mirror is similarly hand-rubbed with sub-diameter pitch tools,
the optician removing millionths of an inch to turn what would have been
a good optical surface into one of the finest obtainable.
Optical Testing: As each Meade ED apochromatic objective
lens, Maksutov optical set, Schmidt-Cassegrain optical set, or parabolic
Newtonian primary mirror progresses through the grinding, polishing, and
final hand-figuring stages of development, it is continuously tested and
re-tested for zonal irregularities, smoothness of figure, and correction.
Intermediate testing is performed using the Foucault and Ronchi methods;
final diffraction image testing is done with a double-pass laser autocollimator
that passes an intense pinhole of monochromatic light (or, in the case of
the APO lenses, white light, so that color correction may also be measured)
through the optical system twice, enabling the technician to detect errors
(at effective magnifications of 800X to 1000X) beyond the observable limit
of the field user. If we seem unusually confident in the capabilities of
Meade optical systems, it is because we know that every optical set is put
through this battery of over 30 separate optical tests and inspections before
the optics are mounted in their respective optical tubes and shipped to
you.
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Pitch-polishing of Schmidt-Cassegrain correcting plates and primary mirrors in Meade polishing rooms.
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Hand-figuring of a Starfinder primary mirror.
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Autocollimator Testing of Schmidt-Cassegrain Optics.
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Optical Alignment and Centration: Finished, individually-matched
Maksutov and Schmidt-Cassegrain optical sets and matched ED doublet
objective lenses are sent to the optical alignment and centration department,
where each optical set is placed into a special optical tube that permits
rotation of the optical elements about their optical axes. (The relative
rotational orientations of the Schmidt-Cassegrain primary mirror, secondary
mirror, and correcting plate, as well as the relative rotational orientations
of the ED/APO doublet components, for example, are not arbitrary.)
Rotation of the optics, while the technician observes an artificial starpoint
under controlled laboratory conditions at high power, yields the unique
relative orientation that cancels out any residual aberrations in the system.
With optimal orientation thus fixed, each optics set is placed into the
machined housings of the optical tube or ED/APO collimation lens cell. The
optical system is once again tested for roundness, regularity, and consistency
of the diffraction image inside and outside of focus. Only after passing
this final test is an optical tube system ready to become part of a Meade
Schmidt-Cassegrain, Maksutov-Cassegrain, or ED apochromatic refracting
telescope.
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CNC Machining of 10" LX200 Rear Cells.
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Quality Control: As part of the final quality control inspection,
each optical system is examined for any coating sleeks or scratches that
may affect performance and which may have occurred in the manufacturing
process. Electromechanical systems, including all electronic circuit boards
in every telescope, are tested and burned-in for a period of 24 hours. Telescopes
which pass this final series of tests are then packed and shipped to authorized
Meade dealers throughout the world.
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Installing the Declination assembly of the 16" LX200.
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Final quality-control inspection of 8", 10", and 12" LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrains.
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