Posts Made By: David Colton

Slow motion control for the TV Gibraltor Alt-Az. Televue says that the mount doesn't need it, but they're wrong. So this would have to be an "after-market" accessory that someone else markets.

With its carbon fiber optical tube, the Celestron is about 15 pounds lighter than the Meade, which you may want to consider, especially if you'll be moving the scope in and out of a garage.

Since you enjoy using a SCT, have you considered buying a new Celestron SCT. The 11" has a carbon fiber tube, which is supposed to be considerably lighter than Meade's metal tube. In fact, I see where Meade no longer lists the weight of their scopes in their advertising literature, which is probably in response to the weight difference between their and Celestron's product. I wouldn't doubt that you could shave 15 to 20 pounds just by switching to the Celestron.

I'd suggest holding onto the C9.25 AND purchasing a smaller, portable scope. I think you'll regret not having the larger scope for those occasions when you have the time to set it up, while having a more portable scope (5" mak or 3"-4" apo) will let you do the casual observing you want to do.

Thanks for the feedback about using the polar alignment mode. Although the manual shows the scope on a wedge, I didn't see anything in the written instructions that specifically states that you have to use a wedge.

As regards the two star alignment, that's what I've been trying, but I can't always find stars that are easy to identify. I was hoping I could 'back' into it, by starting with a star I do recognize and then add it to the database.

You may also want to search the Astromart archives. I asked about making my own wheely bars last year for my LX90 and received good advice, plans and pictures. It cost me about $20 to build my own and it works great.

I believe the exact pronounciation is "itcosthowmuch!"

Where Meade has a problem is in communication. Given the number of threads that appear on this list that are critical of Meade quality control and customer service, a responsive company would (1) listen to the voice of their customers and focus on these issues and (2) communicate the steps they've taken to address these concerns. The fact that Meade is mute on these issues points out that they are really haven't figured out how to be responsive to their customers.

Eventually Meade will pay for this, because potentially new customers will read these threads and may make their buying decisions based on the criticisms expressed here. In fact, they may already being feeling this but aren't aware of it because there really isn't a way to gauge the number of potential buyers who don't choose your products compared to a competitor.

I'd feel a little better if the article referred to Meade as the Honda or Toyota of the telescope industry.

Make sure that the camera will save photos in tif format which is uncompressed. An 8 megapixal photo in tif format will be huge(!) You'll have no problem printing large format prints. Many digital SLR cameras also save in raw format. You'll want a memory card with at least 512 megs of memory.

Also, consider a thermal printer rather than an inkjet as the colors are more colorfast and long lasting. Either printer however will give you prints as good as if not better than what you can do with film. There is now an array of photo papers to choose from as well.

Be sure that you have plenty of ram on your computer (preferrably 512 megs) and in your graphics card (128 megs is good). You could loose all your work if the computer runs out of memory while you're manipulating the photo.

Also consider that you can have your film/slides converted to digital files, so you don't necessarily have to sell the Mamiya. The advantage to digital is that you can see the shot right after you've taken it and if you don't like it, delete it from memory. This is also a good time to buy digital as the quality of the cameras keeps getting better and the cost keeps getting lower. I was comparing the price of compact flash cards and saw where the price of the Ritz camera 512 meg CF memory card dropped by nearly half in just four months!

Since one of your concerns is about the quality of the prints, you may want to take a look at "The Digital Printing Handbook: A Photographer's Guide to Creative Printing Techniques" by Tim Daly. It will give you a good idea of what to expect.