Posts Made By: Jake Jacobson

Sol -

It may have been cold, but it certainly must have been steady!

Wonderful details in your observation and drawing. You've got some good eyes, good optics, good seeing, and good drawing skills. Thanks so much for posting - the seeing has been so poor lately here in So. Cal that I have been missing all the recent exciting activity on Jupiter. Your drawing keeps me up to date!

Oh well, at least it is WARM here, even if the seeing has been lousy!

-Jake

Back around christmas time, someone posted here that a 12" LX-200 was stolen. I believe it was from a university somewhere in Scandinavia

OK... here is the thread:

http://www.astromart.com/messages.asp?message_id=32023&page=

Look at the photo - it certainly looks like one that could be cleaned up. You should immediately contact this person and send him the URL of the auction on ebay.

It definitely sounds suspicious!

Hi Bruce -

I recently got an 8" Konus newtonian and I was blown away by how well it does on planets. I took this picture of Jupiter with it.

Not quite $179, but for under $600 (includes a CG-5 mount, polar scope, and lots of extras) I think it is a great buy for a planetary scope.

I am convinced that the simple newtonian makes a great planetary instrument!

-Jake

Hi George -

The NGC's are not really a goto mount, they are more like built in digital setting circles. The NGC mount's are pretty lousy.

You might want to investigate using a Meade DS-80 mount, which is an Autostar-controlled mount designed for an 80mm refractor. They can be found for around $200 as well, and mate quite well to the televue 76.

There are several folks who have done this on the "Meade-DS-Telescopes" Yahoo group with the TV76.

-Jake

Hi James -

I own the exact same scope, and haven't experienced the tracking problems you describe - my 1793 tracks very smoothly at 500x power. As others have suggested, your culprit may either be low batteries, or an out of balance scope. I think that if you have some play in the worm gears, it won't affect the tracking rate of the RA motor - it just means it will take longer to engage. If rebalancing and fresh batteries doesn't fix the problem, you probably have faulty motors and should get them exchanged.

As for the focuser, mine doesn't have any play in it either, but it was very stiff from the factory grease. There are a couple (2 if I remember correctly) screws on the underside of the focuser that can be tightened or loosened to adjust the focuser tension. You might want to try tightening those first and see if that fixes the problem. If it does not, you could try putting 3 small pieces of velcro inside the focuser at the friction points (look at the inside of the focuser - put the velcro where the white plastic sliders are). That should tighten it up, but still allow it to focus smoothly. I took my focuser apart and replaced the sticky grease with some lithium grease, and now it focuses very smoothly.

Also, the mount can work for astrophotography if you do an accurate polar alignment. I have used mine to take 1 minute unguided shots and have had no real problems. The mount is the newer CG-5/EQ-4 (with the ball bearings), and has PE that is typical of the newer EQ-4 mounts (around 10-15 arcsecs).


-Jake

Hi Gary -

I used to have one from them that was a 40mm. It was nicely made, and had sharp optics. I didn't like it, though, because the eye relief was so extremely long, that it was hard to find the spot to position your eye to see through it. Also, it suffered from "kidney beaning" in my f/11 refractor.

For these reasons, I didn't like it - but the optics were nice and sharp, and the price is right for them.

-Jake

Hi James -

I have the same Konus telescope as you do. My focuser had a little play as you described. As Anthony mentioned, there are two small allen screws on each side of the focus lock knob. Tighten these until there is no play in the focuser. Once they the play is gone, the focuser might be stiff (mine was). So you then need to adjust the 4 focuser tension screws, which are located on the opposite side of the focuser. Loosen them all each a 1/4 turn at a time, and then check the focuser. Continue doing this until it feels smooth. I did this procedure on my focuser, and it now has no play whatsoever, and moves very easily and smoothly.

This is the correct way to adjust this focuser - the wrong way is to tighten the focus lock to take out the play - that will make your focuser move in stiff, jerky motions, and will wear out the focuser lock.

Hope that helps!

-Jake

Try this one...

http://www.markertek.com/MTStore/product.CFM?BaseItem=MDF-1

-Jake

Hi James -

Congratulations on a nice scope, and a wonderful wife!

As Joe said, don't get so worried about getting a bigger scope. 8" is a very good size to show you most objects worth observing, and still somewhat easy to move around and set up.

I should know, I traded in my bigger, more expensive LX-200 scope for the same one you have now (Konus 1793), and could not be happier with the Konus.

I am sure you will enjoy it for years.

-Jake

It is chinese, but is not made by Synta.