Meade Announcement

Posted on US website Astromart: www.astromart.com/classifieds/details.asp?classified_id=528227 .

Several Coronado products discontinued. RCT and SCT production being suspended, some indefinitely. Moving production to a cheaper location.

Moving over to Asia I guess.You would think the jobs for optical technicians and engineers were highly skilled and hard to come by. If Ireland was still a low cost producer they could move here and we would be able to get scopes without paying extortionate duties and tariffs.
I can only imagine the quality issues they may face with a new start up. Personally, I would rather pay a bit more for a US made instrument (but not a car ) than a cheaper one made in say China and gamble on the quality. Its Celestron for me (until they are forced to move also).

Looks like a meltdown.

Celestron will be pleased.
Celestron once ruled the roost and Meade decimated them.

Fat chance they will move here.

Ireland now has the 2nd highest GDP in the European Union, after Luxembourg.
Higher than the USA and 4th or 5th highest in the world.

With costs to match.

Peter.

Looks like a meltdown.



Fat chance they will move here.

Ireland now has the 2nd highest GDP in the European Union, after Luxembourg.
Higher than the USA and 4th or 5th highest in the world.

With costs to match.

Peter.

Maybe they will consider Eastern Europe? Imagine how that would drop the price of scopes in the EU
Nah......Asia :twisted:

Moving over to Asia I guess.You would think the jobs for optical technicians and engineers were highly skilled and hard to come by

You bet they are moving to Asia, and I'd say that those jobs are quite specialised. I Lost my job in July working in research & development with an electronics company, It's all about cost, and the western world does'nt stand a chance now when it comes to running a company.

I can only imagine the quality issues they may face with a new start up. Personally, I would rather pay a bit more for a US made instrument (but not a car ) than a cheaper one made in say China and gamble on the quality. Its Celestron for me (until they are forced to move also).

You can take it that Meade do not have a choice, obviously they're production and shipping costs are too high, and you can expect that they will have quality issues for the next couple of years, with starting up again at another location.

I do wish them good fortune, but they will find it hard over the next couple of years....Celestron are laughing...for now...

Keith..

There are some very good opticians in some of the new EU member states, and some very interesting companies that are already thriving in the areas of military and sports optics.

Meopta optika in the Czech Republic is a case in point. They used to make astronomical telescopes when Czechoslovakia was part of COMECON but unfortunately they've discontinued their consumer astro products in favour of specializing in military and sport optics, in which they appear to be doing much better than the typical scope manufacturer in the astro market.

The astronomy world needs some alternatives to the US-centric brands that currently dominate the marketplace, one can only hope that some of those alternatives will turn out to be European and the most likely candidates seem to be among the new EU states.