Posts Made By: Jim Moscheck

I'm now a businessman and run the retail establishment that has been in my family since 1948. I'm a wanna be finished carpenter and was originally trained in art design/photography hence my interests in optics and photography. Basically, a jack of all trades but a master at none.

Hi Darrell,
My most important observing accessory is my observing chair. You can see more when you are relaxed and comfortable at the eyepiece. My last time out to a dark sky location I forgot it and while the sky was very clear and pretty transparent for Michigan, my back would only let me observe for a couple of hours. :S Definitely make one if you can.
Cheers,

Hey Darrell,
That's good news and I hope the replacement arrives quickly and does a good job for you.

It is a shame that it took so long for them to make this right for you. Personally, I will never buy another Meade, and I had pretty good luck with mine. They must make a whole lot of money selling those dept. store scopes. I really wonder how many of those who have bought these have ever upgraded to a higher priced Meade telescope. :S

I've got some experience on this one. 8) My first real telescope was an 8" LX200 I bought used in '04. I know the owner who had it a year and he said it was the last of the classics which would put the last run about '03 sometime.

For everything you ever wanted to know about LX200 classics go to:

http://www.mapug-astronomy.net/


I had absolutely no problems at all with it and the goto was very accurate. My complaints with it was the smaller FOV at f10 and I wasn't really happy with the planetary views. Maybe a 10" will be better at it than an 8". There is definitely something to be said about tracking instead of nudging. You will need a dew shield, if not for dew, than as a light baffle out front of the corrector plate. I made mine out of a yoga mat I bought at a sporting goods store.

Because I wanted wider views I bought an XT10 f4.7 and the DSOs are much better in the shorter FL and it does surprisingly well on the planets, albeit with higher powered EPs. The newt has less thermal problems and dew is much less of a problem. I liked the newt/dob so much better than the trusty LX200 that I'm now building a new larger dobsonian. Not only that I don't miss the "coffee grinder" sound every time it slewed.

The light was really nice.

Hi Jesus,
A friend of mine has a Meade LXD 55 which is similar to the GP (I think). While not as loud as my LX200 you could tell when he was slewing in the dark. :S

Paul Shin said:

I just purchased a used 10? LX200 Classic and need advice on a few items:

Homemade Case for OTA / Fork
I have the original foam, but was hoping to make something a little smaller. I would prefer a hard case, but soft-sided would also be okay. I have seen several plastic tool boxes / totes, but not sure how well they?ll work.

Homemade Dew Shield
I was planning to purchase a FlexiShield, but to my surprise, the shipping to Hawaii cost more than the item.

Mounting Fork to Tripod
Is there a trick to mounting the fork to the tripod? The problem I?m having is trying to align the bolt with the threading under the base of the fork.

Any comments and / or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Paul

I can help with the dew shield. Sporting goods store for yoga mat or sleeping bag mat. Pretty cheap, I used contact cement to permamently make a tube which will slide on the end of the scope. It could be made to unroll by using velcro, but I never got around to trying that.

The tripod bolt/mounting problem can be solved with a springy-thingy. Scopestuff sells one but they are easy to make. I probably told you this before in another post, but if you haven't seen the MAPUG website you need to. Everything you ever wanted to know about LX200 classics. Look in the topical archive. It's chock full of mods and repair info and homemade projects all geared toward the LX200.

http://www.mapug-astronomy.net/

The LX200 classic was around for a number of years and if it's been asked it's in the archive.

Timm Bottoni said:

Hi,

Just curious but there is a reflectors and refractors main forum, but there isn't one for CATs?

Timm

Try here:

http://www.astromart.com/forums/list.asp?forum_id=46

Might be you have it hidden. Go to the top of the page and click display all forums.

Here's another from my misty mountain hop. If I only had Led Zepplin 4 in my CD player.......

Hi John,
I used spray on Spar Urethane for the whole thing. Lots of light coats, hardly any sanding between coats. Took a week, I would spray one day as many coats as possible, let it dry three days, and repeated it two more times. I just posted a pic in the "me and my telescope" forum.

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=522730&poll_id=&news_id=&page=