Posts Made By: Tony Bonanno

Hi Group,

It's raining, so I can't report on its performance just yet, but will as soon as the skies clear. To be honest, I'll take the rain - we need it very badly here in Santa Fe. I thought that the group might be interested in my initial impressions though.

The "Hypertune" service I'm referring to is the mount re-building offered by Richard Harris (LXD55.com portal). I had been having some difficulty with the mount (rough and tight RA axis, stripped worm gear bolt, poor GOTO's, etc.). I decided to give Mr. Harris' service a try since the price seemed reasonable and what he proposed to do appeared to be worthwhile.

The mount arrived well packed. The first thing I noticed is how SMOOTH both axis moved. MUCH smoother throughout their 360 degree range than before. No "stickiness". My first thought was "gee, this mount feels like my old Vixen Super Polaris...". Play when locked down appears to be very minimal. The mount was clean and free of any residual grease, fingerprints, etc. Included in the box was a "Certificate of Hyper Tune Service" dated 2-5-2003. Also packed in the box was a "Inspections and Upgrade Check List" which listed about 20 different items. In addition to the "check" marks, there were about 12 "notations" handwritten describing different
observations and actions/repairs taken. The report also shows the test results for GOTO and Tracking. The tracking results for my mount read "within 1/2 arc over 60 min. Jupiter tracked for 60 min
with 900mm FL scope and 6mm EP.." Other notations include "first night out, easy align using good level tripod and 1 deg polar alignment.. M42, M31, M32, Jupiter, Saturn were perfect!... ".

Well, as you can imagine, I'm anxious to see how things work for myself. I'm only intending to use this mount for visual use and if it's even close to what is described in the report, I will consider it money well spent. After the rains stop, I'll let you know what I find. Oh, one other thing, there is a nice little badge on the
mount (top of RA housing) that reads "LXD55 Portal, HyperTune Serviced, 0102 2003".

Cheers,

Tony

Hi group,

I'm new here. I am the proud owner of my first Takahashi scope - a Mewlon 210 which I purchased new last Fall. I've just made some mount changes and want to attach a Losmandy 4" dovetail to my Mewlon. Not sure of the best and most stable approach and thought some of you might have some tips. Was wondering if the Losmandy 7" DUP would mate to the two holes on the base of the Mewlon (currently there is a Tak vixen style dovetail attached to those holes)? Any suggestions appreciated. Looks like a good group here.

Tony Bonanno
Santa Fe, NM

For several weeks, I've not been able to do any searches on the astromart classified, other than the current pages. Keep getting message SITE BUSY after long delay. Anyone else notice this problem ?

Hi Chris,

As Mike Gibson said in his post "very good telescopes..". I've had a bunch of telescopes from 4" to 10", SCT's, SN, Mak-cass, mak-newts, Vixen VISAC, refractors, etc. All I can say is that the MN61 6" mak-newt that I have gives the best views, period, compared to any other tube of similar aperture. Does my 8" SCT reveal more DSO's, yes, but the views through the mak-newt of what it does see are far nicer (black, contrasty skies, pinpoint star images, great contrast, terrific detail, my best planetary scope). I wish it was larger than 6", but any decent mak-newt larger is going to cost you the bank. The downside is "long heavy tube", long cool-down, not very nice to look at, collimation a little tricky (but it stays once you're there), doesn't handle film, but will do fine with CCD, etc. If you've got a mount to handle it and film astroimaging isn't a requirement, then by all means, seriously consider one.

Tony