Meade Instruments

The Meade Instruments Corporation (also shortened to Meade) is an American multinational company headquartered in Irvine, California, that manufactures, imports, and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, CCD cameras and telescope accessories for the consumer market. It is the world's largest manufacturer of telescopes. Besides selling under its "Meade" brand name, the company sells solar telescopes under the Coronado name. Its products are also imported and sold in Europe by a former subsidiary under the Meade and Coronado brand names.

Origins and history

Founded in 1972 by John Diebel, Meade started as a mail order seller of small refracting telescopes and telescope accessories manufactured by the Japan based Towa Optical Manufacturing Company. Meade started manufacturing its own line of products in 1976, introducing 6" and 8" reflecting telescopes models in 1977. In 1980 the company ventured into the Schmidt-Cassegrain market that up to that time had been dominated by Celestron Corporation. Meade has a long history of litigation with other companies over infringement of their patents, particularly with its once bitter rival Celestron. In August 2008, Meade modified their line of schmidt-cassegrain telescopes with changes to the optical surfaces in design they call "Advanced Coma-Free optics" (ACF Optics).