Posts Made By: Karl Rettenmaier

I'm going to purchase an equitorial mount for a 8" Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain (about 12 pounds no accessories/diagonal). Choices abound, but I am budget constrained so I am looking to the far east. I'm looking at either:
1) The Apogee INC equitorial, 2) CG5 ITE e (polar scope, drives, steel legs included), 3)the new Celestron or 4)Orion CG5 replacements, 5) the LX55 (used)or 6) the Markus Ludes chinese equitorial. Ideas on the various mounts abilities to handle the load? Has anyone had experience with the Apogee, ITE, or Markus Ludes mounts? Has anyone had the Markus Ludes mount shipped to the us? Thanks

I've had trouble since day one with rotation of the image
during focusing on a c8 vintage 7/2003 (newer gray tube vs original black). So being a tinkerer (owner of a 74 triumph tr6) I looked at the focusing mechanism. I pulled the plate on the back of the scope below the focus knob, and there is a threaded shaft with a brass stop held to the shaft with a 'c' clip that moves the main mirror along the axis of the scope to obtain focus. The strange thing is that there are two bearings on the shaft below the stop that have ~1/8" clearance with the scope's main body. It appears that a sleeve of some sort should have been located between the body of the scope and the bearings on the focus shaft. This 1/8" clearance cause rotation in the image as I focus. Does anyone know if the new c8's should have a sleeve between the bearings and the scope body. Sorry for the long note.....

Folks,
Two questions, I have a lxd-55 motor set mounted to a CG-5:
1) How is the AZ and Dec ratio calculated in Autostar? The LXD-55
has 35 tooth gear on the drive, 37 tooth gear on the worm. I have
a 40 tooth gear on the the worm. I'm assuming that I can multiply the standard ratios (2.3715) times 40/37 and end up with the correct ratio?
2) Has anyone tried to fit thrust bearings on the worm shaft? It has
~6mm diameter shaft and I found some thrust bearings of various inner and outer diameters at www.vxb.com from the R/C car industry. Itlooks like I could fit one easily and cure some of the backlash problems inherent in the CG-5 worm design.

I have 'fixed' the problem by using the 1" cap from an isopropyl alcohol bottle by cutting the top of it off and
trimming the circumference to size to make a sleeve. Sounds hokey, but I needed something flexible in that the gap is not quite equidistant between the bearing's exterior and the scope body. I tryed at steel sleeves from Lowe's, but I needed a 1" exterior by > +/- 3/4" interior. The one that I bought would not fit due to the eccentricity in the gap. I looked for a nylon bearing without luck, so I ended up with the bottle cap for now (and a note sent to Celestron).....