chrisbekas.com

I had a reply from Mike:

“Mike here: You can do a star test and look for spikes. You could also just look at the mirror from the eyepiece hole; if you see the scratches in the circular view of the correcting lens then they are in the illuminated area. Replacement and subsequent recollimation is not easy; you may be better off contacting Meade. If the scratches are outside the illuminated area of the mirror then you should be OK…”

I did a star test last night using Sirius; I didn’t see any spikes or anything peculiar; the diffraction rings were uniform and consistent when I tested the out-of-focus/in-focus test. I wish I had a higher power eyepiece to test further (a birthday present perhaps?).

It also appears that the scratches are just outside the field-of-view on the flip-mirror, so I guess that means that everything is fine.
At least I’ve learned one thing: never let anyone (expert or not) to put anything in your telescope…