Posts Made By: Brian Lopresti

I am getting back to the hobby of amateur astronomy after a hiatus of ~20 yrs. I am finding that I have to re-familiarize myself with modern equipment. I thought that it made sense to seek the opinions of this forum before I went and spent a lot of money on eyepieces. Can anyone suggest the best eyepieces (brand and design) for a 10" Meade LX200 f/10 SCT for planetary and deep-sky viewing- with some emphasis on value? I've been looking seriously at the Baader hyperion for planetary observations and the Meade series 5000 SWA for deep-sky. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

I've been recently looking for a case for a 10" Meade LX200 SCT, and I didn't want to drop $500-$600 on a JMI case. Pelican has a brand new case called the 1780T, which is their largest. It is made for military and SWAT applications to carry a dozen assault rifles, but you can get it with the standard pick and pluck foam. The interior dimensions are 42" x 22" x 15", which I found fits the shipping foam inserts for that scope extremely well. It also has a 50/50 split, so the lid is as deep as the base (perfect for the standard shipping foam inserts). You have a space about 7" x 22" x 15" deep left over for accessories. You can buy them online for anywhere from $350-$600, but the shipping costs are hefty. I found a local distributor of Pelican products for local pickup and I purchased it for $354 and no shipping. This thing is awesome! Totally bomb-proof. It's waterproof, shock-resistant, airtight, and you can drive a truck over it (literally). The lid lifts completely off for easy access to the equipment inside. It also has integrated wheels and a handle, which makes it very easy to move around. I don't think that there is a better case made for this application. As I said, it fits the 10" Meade SCT perfectly, but I suspect that you could customize it to fit other fork mounted scopes or scopes + equatorial mounts very easily.

Here's a link to the product website:

http://pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=1780t

I'd like to acquire a focal reducer for my 10" LX200 for wide-field visual observation. My EP of choice for this is a 35mm Panoptic. I am concerned that the Meade and Celestron thread-in f/6.3 reducers will cause vignetting in an eyepiece this long. Lumicon sells a thread-in focal reducer which I think might be a solution to this problem. Does anybody out there have experience with these accessories to make a recommendation? Does the Peterson eye-opener help the vignetting problem with the f/6.3 reducers that thread into the visual back?

I am considering purchasing a Lumicon OIII filter with SCT rear-cell threads for a 10" f/10 SCT. I use a WO crayford focuser, so the filter will be in line with the focuser. Does anybody have experience with this arrangement? Any trouble reaching focus or with vignetting?

THanks for the advice!

I'm a little fed up with my fork mounted LX200. The combination of a WO crayford focuser and a 2" diagonal prevent me from viewing anything near the zenith as the diagonal whacks the fork during dec axis slewing. I really don't want to give up either. From an engineer's perspective, I can easily conclude that it must be possible to move the LX200 OTA off the fork mount and mount it to some third party GEM, like a Sphinx or a G-11. THe wedge I assume will have similar problems with dec axis limitations.

Has anybody out there done this? What mount/accessories would you recommend?

I am looking for a way to sturdily piggyback a WO Megrez 90 on a 10" LX200. I have a pair of William Optics 90 mm rings, and the hole spacing on the rings is either 30 mm, 60 mm, or 80 mm. I'd like to install the Losmandy DM-10 dovetail on the LX200 OTA and then attach the rings to a pair of losmandy dovetail adapters (DA). However, there is not any information available on the Losmandy website to indicate the hole spacing on the DA's. Does anybody out there know whether or not the WO rings are compatible with the Losmandy dovetail adapters?

I also have a Vixen style dovetail plate, but I don't think anybody makes an adapter that mates the Losmandy dovetail with a Vixen style dovetail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

has the winner from last month's support drawing for the TV ethos 8mm been drawn? I haven't seen an announcement yet, so I am still holding on to hope....perhaps in vain?

Some of you may have read about the unfortunate demise of my C9.25 on Cloudy Nights. Because I have been unable to get any restitution from Optic Wave Laboratories (DBA Farpoint) for the failure to reassemble the scope properly after servicing with the safety stops in place that are designed to prevent the primary mirror from sliding off the baffle, I am forced to sell what is left of my planetary imaging setup as well as the remains of the OTA.

Offered for little more than the price of scrap plus postage:

1) undamaged f/2.5 primary mirror with XLT coatings
2) Rear cell and baffle- might be useful to someone wishing to add DC cooling fans to their scope, but not brave enough to do it to their own scope!
3) Secondary mirror cell- secondary mirror is badly damaged from the impact of the baffle sleeve. The corrector plate shattered, so just the secondary holder remains.

I just can't bear to toss this in the trash, so if anybody wants any of this for an ATM project, drop me a line!

ALso, in the next week or two I'll be selling off a boatload of accessories in the classifieds that went with this scope since OWL's follies have ended my planetary imaging aspirations for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for the advice. If I have it figured out correctly to piggyback the Megrez 90 using the WO rings, I need the Losmandy DM10 with the radius blocks to bolt to the OTA of my LX200. Then, a pair of Losmandy DA or ADM dovetail adapters, and then ADM's ultimate adapter to go from the 2" DUP hole pattern to the 60 and 80 mm spacing of the william optics rings. I think this ought to do it. I have the WO Vixen style dovetail plate, but it seems that it isn't going to be of much use for mounting to the Losmandy D bars.

I am not loyal to any platform, but I don't see any other dovetail bars with radius blocks that would enable piggybacking on top of an LX200 OTA.