A 2X Barlow lens doubles the power of every eyepiece with which it is used. A 2X Barlow lens doubles the main telescope's effective focal length, thereby doubling the power of each eyepiece used with the Barlow. A variety of telescope accessories are either supplied as standard equipment or available optionally, depending on the telescope model. The diagonal mirror diverts light out to a right-angle to the telescope's main tube. All Meade refractors and mirror-lens telescopes include a diagonal mirror or prism for this purpose.
Most telescopes have rather narrow fields of view.
As a result, finding and centering an object in the telescopic field can be difficult unless a viewfinder is used. With the viewfinder aligned parallel to the main telescope, objects first located in the viewfinder are then also in the main telescope's field. Once an object, whether terrestrial or astronomical, is located and centered in the telescope's field of view, the telescope's mechanical mounting permits the observer to track, or follow, the object as it moves across the landscape or sky. With the equatorial mount of the Meade Model 395, tracking astronomical objects is simplified. Slow-motion controls, sometimes operated through flexible cables, can facilitate these motions.