Posts Made By: George Mavromates

Does anyone know where I can find a plan/diagram on making wooden legs for the LXD 55?

If anyone is interested there is a Meade ED refractor users discussion group out on yahoo forums. we would like to hear from anyone having comments or news about the meade ed refractors.

To all you Meade ED refractor owners come and join the Yahoo forum meade ed refractors and talk about your expriences.

What is a good way of cleaning the lenses of a refractor. Should i use a lens cleaning solution?

George

Has anyone had any experiance with the Orion Atlas mount. I believe its their version of the EQ-6. If so have they made any improvements on it? How does it track?

Has anyone made a comparison? Does the 9.25 beat the mak in planetary views?

Has anyone used an artificial star for collimation? Where can I buy one?

Last night I used my Meade 127ed. I spent the day checking collimation with an artificial star. Everything looked from what I can tell to be right on. Collimation is very important for these Type of ED refractors. The skys over N florida at 8 pm were excellent 7-8 no atmospherics. My LXD 55 mount performed flawlessly. About time been
to meade once already.Guess all the bugs are gone. Still shakes at very high power. Mount is at limit with this flimsey aluminum tripod. The scope from what I could tell performed very good. I viewed Jupiter for an hour
using a 10.5 tellevue and a celestron APO barlow. I could see no violot color around the planet limb. At times of good seeing I could make out both N and S pole Belts the GRS and some detail in the GRS. I could make out very faintly some more thin belts near the GRS. I could see very faint banding by the N pole. I observerd a moon
transit going across the limb and face of the planet. The moon was a distinct clearly seen whitish globe. I tried more Power 6.5 Meade Super plossel with the barlow but it was too much. Saturn was too high for the mount. Directly overhead so I did not observe it. I also spent some time
looking at M42. It was beautiful especially with a Orion skyglo filter. The nebula cloud filled the eysepiece. The humidity was pretty high the lens started to fog over so
I had to call it quits after about an hour and twenty minutes. I have attempted to So all the time I could not see Jupiter clearly it was the atmoshpere and i thought it was collimation. It seems this scope is affected by
atmospherics. I also did a star test and everything looked centered. I am sure a collimation expert could tweak it some more and get a tad bit
more out of it but I can't find anything wrong collimation wise. Wish I had a 6" ED. I hope this helps you. I like the scope but now I want probably costs arounf $1700 used plus I would need a Atlas (EQ6) mount to handle the weight.

Well here goes the SC vs refractor contraversy again only this time let's throw in the Mak 7. I am starting to get aperture fever. I am mainly a planetary observer. Been through the 8" SC and know their limitations. I have a meade ED 127. Now that it's been cleaned and collimated at Meade it gives great images of the planets even good deep sky for its size. The other night the atmoshere was calm and it gave some awesome images of Jupiter and M42. I am wondering can I get more out of a Mak 7( I hear it gives refractor like images) or a 10"SC (more aperture) on the planets? I am leaning more towards the meade Mak. Has anyone done a side by side comparison? Opinions? Thoughts?

May be will see him in the stars soon?