Posts Made By: Mike Alexander

Recently I sold my 8 inch LNT, which I used to carry out to the level back yard. I had no problems doing alignments and GOTO's

After that I bought a 12 inch LNT which I keep in the garage and lug out onto the driveway, which is sloped down from the garage.

I am having a heck of a time doing any kind of alignment on the driveway - even when I do a successful automatic alignment I can not GOTO a single Messier object successfully.

Can an LNT LX90 be used on a sloped driveway, and, if so, what is the limit of the slope?

Thanks.......Mike

I won't bore you with the details now, but my 12 inch LX90, while mounted on the standard field tripod, fell twice - once backwards onto the visual back and once side wards onto the finder scope side on my lawn.

The backwards fall apparently mashed the threads of the visual back into the threads of the rear cell thread, because, while I can turn the visual back CCW with a pair of channel locks, it can not be removed from the rear cell holder.

The collector plate was not cracked or damaged. The secondary mirror is still nice and snug.

When I focus on a star or group of stars, they appear as sharp pinpoints of light and are not distorted.

However two things concern me: First, when I unfocus on a star to get the typical collimation donut, the dark circle in the center is a little off centered but not bad. Of more concern, when I move this collimation donut off to the side of the field of view - whether I move it north east, south or west - when it is about halfway out of the field of vision I start to see an eclipse of darkness forming on the remaining circle of light, enterin from the center of the the field of view side.

Is this normal? If not, what problem is it indicative of and how can it be corrected?

Secondly there is a definite lag time ( perhaps 2 or 3 seconds) from when you turn the focusing knob until it actually stops focusing. When I quickly tried to focus on a star using a 32 mm TeleVue, I overshot the focal point, and, when I quickly went the other way, I did it again. This problem is even worse with higher power EP's.

Prior to buying this scope I had an 8 inch LX90 and it didn't seeme to have any lag time at all - when you turned the focus knob, the respond was immeadiate.

Is this lag time normal or indicative of some damage from the falls? If not normal, how can it be repaired.

I am heartbroken over this turn of events - I just got this scope a couple of weeks ago.

Any advice and/or assistance you can provide would be deeply appreciated.


Respectfully........Mike

I have a 12 inch Meade LX90 and would like to get a consensus of opinions on what is your favorite/best eyepiece for viewing details in galaxies?
What type of EP - eg orthoscopic, Plossl, orthocentric?
What focal length?
Even what brand do you find the best?

Enjoy the day.......Mike

Never seen anything like this.

Cord became tightly wrapped around tripod - despite the fact that I had cord wrap turned on .

Symptoms: no matter what slew speed you select, it quickly reverts to X 8. The number 3 key does not work at all, and yet if you press some onther key eg 7, you will get one, two three or even a full screen of 3's automatically. The right arrow does not work at any speed, and I have to manually tweak the OTA to the right to get it the final few minutes.

I was praying that I could clear all of these problems by a RESET on the Autostar but all of the gremlins are still there.

Any help you can offer would be deeply appreciated.

Clear skies......Mike

P.S. the scope has an LNT module also

I have a 12 inch LX90 with UHTC.

I am trying to get a consensus of opinions on this subject:

Do you find that there are any filters that are of value in bringing out details in galaxies?

If so, which filters and on which galaxies have you found them helpful?


Clear skies.........Mike

Does anyone know of a book or catalogue listing eg the top 50 NGC galaxies in terms of surface brightness?


Thanks.........Mike

If a barlow lense doubles the magnification of an EP, does it reduce the true field of view of the EP by 50% or is the true field of view not effected?

Thanks.........Mike

If a given Barlow doubles the mangification of an EP, does it also reduce the true field of vision by 50% or is it unchanged?


Thanks.........Mike

I have a 12 inch LX90 scope.

In your opinion, from 41 degrees latitude, what would be the five easiest galaxies to see spiral detail in?

I live in rural CT where I typical get mag 6.3 skies.

Thanks..........Mike

I have a 12 inch LX90 with UHTC.
With the nearly full moon we have to deal with in the upcoming days, I know that the skies just won't be dark enough to see details in galaxies.

My question is this: Would I be wasting my time looking at nebulas and globular clusters also?

I have a Celestron UHC filter and Astronomik UHC and OIII filters. Would these help at all or should I just wait until the moon goes back into her cave?

Enjoy the day ...........Mike