Posts Made By: Bruce Hayes

I am trying to put together a portable enought package to fit in my Mustang for remote viewing. I have owned and sold an Explore 127 triple with a cgem. that package was very nice but it only fit in the pickup and could not out perform my 8" cpc ( for visual) enought to justifiy keeping it. The proceeds of the sale turned into a Lunt 60 double stack and a Meade LX 80. The jury is still out on the LX 80 but the lunt is small but a keeper. The LX 80, Lunt , and a 8" cat ota or 4"refractor all in tight cases will fit in the stang. The prices are way steep but I am considering the SV or Tak. I really want to buy American made are they worth it and is the SV as good?

I asked this elswhere but maybe you straight shooters can help. I am trying to decide between two scopes. The king of the 4" tripples a Tak or a SV. I want to buy American if the comparison is heads up.

All i read is use Photoshop. I hate spending so much on a program that I will use so little of. Does Elements or Elements Premium have what I will need for astrophotography. If not what are the options? The current Photoshop is PCS6. I would rather spend $700 on telescope stuff. And buy the way the blog on PSC6 states the need to use the cloud for high end editing. Why would I want to call in the clouds for astrophotograpy?

Well I bought a Meade LX80. I previously owned a CGEM that is an excellent mount. Unfortunately in a transportation case it would not fit in my car.
Let me start with attributes of the LX80. I really like the ALT.-AZ. design, the leveling built into the legs is great, and the design philosophy is very good.
Now to what Meade sold me. The colors and fit finish are very poor. The leg spreader is a joke. Both static alignment marks are way off . No hanger or placement for the controller. No pull out protection for the power. The primary dovetail holder to the mount fit and machining is very poor. No solar sub routine at all, you must do a garbage alignment and go-to Mercury then jog to the Sun. The rubber feet on the tripod cause so much wiggle it is amazing ( fortunately they pop off easily. The EQ.-AZ. Axis was so poorly machined and assembled that it was unusable even for my Lunt 60 Solar Scope.
If you have a small machine shop at home as I do you can fix this axis. The design is good but the manufacturing is so bad it is not functional as delivered.
Meade designed a killer little versatile mount. I believe that they worked very hard and diligently designing the LX80. Also I believe the design fills a void that would make it a very popular for grab and go astronomers like me. Reading the blogs on Meade falling short is not new to them. I am sorry to say they do not deserve to be around. Half right is still wrong ,again.

Thanks for the info. Wound up getting the Takahasi TSA 102. The TV101 is for imaging and just too fast for visual. This purchase was a little out of my league and wanted a keeper. Had to go for the scope that I could touch and test.

I hope that the silent majority out there are as educated and intelligent on this matter as this young man. Small facts on times I have had to carry a gun for my family and neighbors defense. Los Angeles riots, My employer demanded we go to work the second day of the riots. I left home with a chambered 45 on my passenger seat in plain view and drove into Culver city to go to work. As I got off the freeway and drove surface streets ( only about seven blocks) two different times officers looked in my car from the passenger side spotted the gun looked at me , gave the thumbs up and waved me by. At work listening to the TV we discovered that we were inside a no officer zone. The police and the national guard (with rifles no bullets) set up a parameter around the riot but would not go in to help for any reason. We posted look-outs and guards and were left alone. Within six or eight blocks hundreds of businesses were looted and torched. The only, let me say that again, the only buineseses not set on fire were protected by private citizens that fired at any armed offender. The jackasses were firing on the fire trucks. But not in our area we had their backs.
Next time the 1994 earthquake. Hit at night in the winter. Immediately all power was out. Moments latter the air was heavy with the smell of natural gas. Ten minutes or so hard to tell the first fire and explosion went of two blocks from my house. I drove three blocks to the fire station to ask what the f$%&$%&$^ why are you guys not rolling. They said we have to wait to be dispatched and watched the glow. Be for I left disgusted I could here their radios telling them to secure and stand down until police secured the zone. I went back and tried to help the fire fighting. No water, no police, no power, many looters, on our one. Armed citizens stopped looting in our area for a week.

What makes any of you think that bombing chemical dumps with our missles is going to do anything positive. Face it we are hated deeply in this part of the world and we should be. Except for Kuait and Isreal we have only fueled the fires. Feed a man Gordon's fishsticks and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats and feeds his family for life.
Also every time we impose our religion, politics, and other demands for our help. This is just plain selfish and counter productive.
Stay out of this until they work it out and offer to teach them what they need to improve thier lives.

41mm