Every hobby has its oddball relics, those weird, poorly designed, or outright dysfunctional products that somehow still manage to spark a flicker of desire. In the world of amateur astronomy, this phenomenon is especially pronounced. Telescopes are not just tools for stargazing, they are mechanical embodiments of dreams. Even when a telescope performs terribly, its shape, history, or place in someone’s personal journey can make it oddly irresistible.
Some telescopes are remembered for their precision, reliability, and groundbreaking design. Others are remembered for being almost comically bad. Yet, for all their flaws, whether it’s poor optics, laughable marketing, or painfully awkward mounts, certain failed designs continue to hold a strange allure. They’re bulky, unbalanced, and often unusable, but they also capture a unique moment in the history of amateur astronomy.
These so-called "bad" telescopes still manage to provoke curiosity and affection. Sometimes it's nostalgia, other times it’s the distinctive industrial design or the sheer audacity of their existence. Either way, these infamous instruments have earned a spot in the unofficial canon of telescopes people love to hate, and sometimes, hate to admit they love.
What follows is a closer look at five of the most notoriously flawed telescopes ever made, each one a fascinating artifact from a time when ambition sometimes outpaced engineering. Among the telescopes that stand out on this list is the Meade Starfinder 16 Equatorial, a true monster of a scope. Originally pitched as an affordable way to access deep-sky observing with a massive 16-inch aperture, it ended up being one of the most impractical telescopes ever sold to amateur astronomers. Early versions didn’t even include proper tube rings, and many users discovered that the telescope was nearly impossible to transport, align, or use effectively without risking physical injury or serious frustration. Yet, for all its bulk and flaws, there’s something undeniably compelling about its sheer scale and the ambition behind its creation.
Then there’s the Criterion Dynamax 8, a telescope that tried to capitalize on the popularity of the Celestron C8 but failed spectacularly in execution. Plagued by optical issues and unreliable mechanics, it gained a reputation as one of the worst Schmidt-Cassegrain designs to reach the market. Still, its retro styling, glossy brochures, and claims of cutting-edge innovation give it a certain nostalgic charm. It represents an era when consumer astronomy was just beginning to expand, and companies were racing to offer compact, powerful scopes to the public, sometimes with more enthusiasm than engineering rigor.
And of course, no discussion of delightfully bad telescopes would be complete without the assortment of budget instruments from Edmund Scientific. Known more for selling surplus parts than producing reliable optical gear, many of their telescopes were barely functional out of the box. Mounts were often unstable, mirrors misaligned, and components downright bizarre, like non-elliptical secondary mirrors bent out of sheet metal. Yet these scopes ignited the imaginations of thousands of budding astronomers who pored over the company’s catalogs, dreaming of cosmic exploration. Even today, their strange construction and vivid marketing hold a certain appeal, turning them into curious collector’s items and conversation pieces.
In his recent video Ed Ting goes through a list of scopes that have a solid reputation for being poorly made, frustrating to use, or just plain impractical, but that he still wants in his collection. Each one has a story or some nostalgic pull, even if they're known for their flaws. Here’s a breakdown of all five.
The first telescope Ed talks about is the Meade Starfinder 16-inch on an equatorial mount. It's known for being massive, difficult to use, and structurally weak. Some early versions didn’t even come with proper tube rings, just bolts screwed directly into the sonotube. One person he knows described it as "247 pounds of bad cardboard."
Meade sold a lot of these in the 90s, and now many of them sit unused in garages or basements. Ed admits the Dobsonian version wasn’t great either, but the equatorial version took it further in the wrong direction. Still, he wants one, not to use, but to place by his front door just to see the reactions of people walking in. It’s not about performance. It’s about the reaction it gets.
Next up is the Criterion Dynamax 8, a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope that competed with the Celestron C8 in the late 70s and early 80s. Compared to the C8, it didn’t stand a chance. Meade soon entered the market with the 2080, and Celestron and Meade kept improving their scopes every year. The Dynamax didn’t.
The telescope had a poor optical reputation, and the marketing tried to cover that up. Ed points out that the brochures talked more about the Bakelite tube and the tripod than the optics. He’s seen attempts to revive them with refigured mirrors and upgraded focusers, but those aren’t what he’s after. He wants an original version in factory condition, just to see how bad it really is.
These small 4-inch SCTs from Meade, mostly from the early 1980s, had model numbers like 2040, 2045, and 2045D. On paper, they should have worked well. Grinding a 4-inch mirror is easier than an 8-inch, but somehow, these scopes never delivered good views. Ed says he’s never seen a good one.
They were marketed as portable observatories, but most of them ran on AC clock drives, which made them less usable in the field. Only the final version, the 2045D, ran on DC and could realistically be used away from an outlet. Even though they’re not great performers, Ed wants one, mostly because of how they were marketed. He still remembers the taglines from 40 years ago.
Edmund Scientific wasn't really a telescope manufacturer. They sold gear made from surplus parts, and it showed. Ed says he’s never seen a good telescope from them, and he’s tried. He mentions the AstroScan as one that sort of works, but most of them were barely usable.
One scope he wanted for years was a 4-inch f/10 Newtonian from the catalog, mostly because of a photo of kids having fun with it. When he finally got one, he was reminded why he’d sworn not to buy another Edmund scope. The mount was flimsy, the secondary mirror wasn’t even an ellipse, and the whole thing couldn’t hold alignment. He’s even seen fork-mounted Newtonians from them that somehow performed worse than the already bad pedestal versions. But the nostalgia is strong, and he admits he’ll probably end up buying another one.
The last one on the list is personal for Ed. His original review of the Meade 7-inch Maksutov-Cassegrain in 1997 was what first put his telescope review site on the map. That scope never worked right, it wouldn’t collimate, the views were poor, and it had to be sent back to Meade multiple times with no improvement. His friend owned it, and eventually they gave up trying to fix it.
Even though he’s tested all the other sizes in the lineup, 4, 5, 6, and 7 inches, and found similar issues, he still wants the 7-inch model for two reasons. One, it looks cool. Two, it’s a part of his own story in amateur astronomy, and having one around would be a reminder of where it all started.
In the end, Ed isn’t recommending any of these telescopes. In fact, he says not to buy them. But there’s something about them, whether it’s the design, the history, or the personal connection, that makes him want to own them anyway. It’s not about performance. It’s about what they represent.
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