Cosmic Geoff

My Celestron 127mm Mak OTA weighs in at 4.5Kg or 10 lbs, including finder. The SLT mount is barely sufficient and quite wobbly. A AZ4-2 or EQ-5 mount does a good job of mounting it stably.

A little patience before you send it back. I doubt very much that the mount is at fault. Solar System alighn should be a doddle if you enter the right parameters. If the focus is out, several turns of the focus knob may be required to get it in focus. If you see a 'donut', the trick is to wind the knob till the donut shrinks to a dot. If you have a dot, that's nearly as good as it will get, and if it is not sharp, the atmospheric conditions may be to blame. Two more tips: Get a proper +12v power pack and don't rely on the internal battery. Buy or make a dew shield - it is a required accessory.

I hve a Celestron C8 SE configured for quick setup with the Starsense (camera and handset) accessory. I can carry it all outside through a doorway as one lump, set it down on a flat hard surface (levelling not essential) and have it working in a few minutes. Or I can set it outside half an hour earlier to cool down. With many outfits the setup time will cover the cooling time.🙂

A GoTo would indeed be helpful in not-dark skies. The Nexstar GoTo system from Celestron, as used in the 4SE etc is easy to use. The Skymax 150 Pro will be heavier and have a somewhat narrower field of view than a SCT of the same aperture. What is your budget? Meade have had some financial difficulties lately.

I read somewhere very recently that the recommended voltage is 12 to 13 volts, for longer life. Any sort of power bank with adequate capacity should do (e.g. a car engine starter or an astro power tank). There would be no mains voltage or trailing lead to trip over. It sounds like you got an absolute bargain. Unless a dew shield was included you should get one, as this really should be a standard accessory with every SCT.

If you bought the EQ5 Synscan GoTo or the HEQ5 Synscan GoTo mount, that would stably support any of your choices of scope and leave some headroom for upgrades. As these are complete mount/tripods, you would not need the AZ GTi as well (unless you want to mount it on a light tripod for a grab'n go). I should point out that even the EQ5 Synscan would use up all your £600 budget on its own. 🙁

Good luck. I have seen a 16" Meade LX200 in an observatory, which must be two or three decades old by now. They had some trouble with the mount a couple of years ago but the optics are still fine.

The mirrors are not exposed and the only communication to atmosphere is through the eyepiece hole, so the most you can do is look in the corrector plate and see they look shiny. If the outside looks in good condition, the mirrors should be fine. If they clearly ar not, dismantling, re-coating and re-assembling will be expensive.

Check for general condition. Does it look clean and cared for? Any missing or damaged screws? The corrector plate should be undamaged. A bit of dust and dots of tree sap can be cleaned off. And if you are concerned about its size and weight, try lifting it. Could be 61 lbs excluding tripod & wedge. Get it powered, see the handset light up and run the RA and Dec drives.

That should be put in context, for your future reference. I suspect that a 10" LX200 would weigh something like 30KGs for the OTA and mount unit. (You can look up the details yourself if you are interested). The 10" SCT OTA on its own would be bulky and weigh around 10Kg, but ANY OTHER KIND OF 10" SCOPE WILL BE LONGER AND HEAVIER. As a beginner, I suggest you go back to basics and decide on a budget, and what degree of portability, whether basic (manual) mount or GoTo would suit your needs. On the whole, it would be wise to start with something small and simple and scale up later. Yes, we do have a buy/sell section but the rules have just changed which may affect you.

The general opinion of Meade instruments are that the optics are very good, but the mounts are not so good or unreliable. I assume this is a SCT. £650 is not a lot for a 10" SCT, even without the mount, and you should not worry too much about the age of the optical tube assembly. (For comparison, a new 10" SCT tube assembly only might cost around £2000.) The complete setup will be big, heavy and not ultra-portable. Other than that, if it works, fine. Should the mount fail however, you could be looking at a large amount of money to re-mount the optical tube on a modern GoTo mount (e.g. from Skywatcher.) Definitely have the mount powered up and put through its paces before you buy. Once you have confirmed that the mount is working , it's your choice 🙂

The Mak is an excellent smaller scope that can be put on various mounts. Good for most tasks unless you want a wide field. The Celestron Astro Fi 6 is another excellent scope, again good for most tasks unless you want a very wide field. The Star Discovery by most reports is made down to a budget. The main mirror has no collimation adjustment, but this is not necessarily a disadvantage... As for the mounts, I learnt to distrust WiFi when it was installed for the laptops at work and we had to take it all out again because of electrical interference. AFAIK these mounts can be used with a handset (at extra cost). Take a critical look at the weight rating and stability of these mounts, which all seem to be of the limited weight/portable variety. Some people are tolerant of wobblemounts, but I am not.

Check the manufacturer's spec sheets. A 8" Celestron SCT is not heavy at all.

Check whether the mount can be used with an optional cabled handset. I learned to distrust WiFi when they installed it for the laptops at my last place of work and then had to rip it out and cable them because of electrical interference. A scope will last a very long time (many decades), while electric or electronic mounts have a limited life before they break down or become so obsolete nobody wants to use them. Just like cars or computers.

You do not need to table mount a small GoTo scope. I have tripod mounted Celestron Nexstar GoTo scopes, a 127mm Mak and a 8" SCT and I mostly observe sitting down. The eyepiece position on these does not move a lot and you can get to it while sitting, particularly if you have a chair of variable height (which some observers use but I don't). It is actually much easier to see if you sit rather than stand while trying to stay in position and not bump the eyepiece.

You would have a more pleasant user experience with a mount that has a capacity of more than 5Kg and easily supports the Heritage 150p. I appreciate it may exceed your budget, but putting a 6" Newtonian on a EQ-5 Synscan would not be considered over-mounting, and would give a far more rigid setup than the mounts you cite. I have used lightweight mounts and an EQ-5 mount with small scopes and the difference is like rubber vs. scaffolding.

I used to have a 200p Newtonian on an EQ-5 mount and heartily disliked this combination, so I understand that you may want to dispose of it.🙂 I would not recommend putting the 200p on the lightweight Nexstar mount. No good ever comes of overloading a mount. On the contrary, the HEQ5 is reckoned to be a more suitable mount for a 200p. You might consider getting a small scope that suits the Nexstar mount (and does not overload it) as a grab'n go or travel setup. I kept the EQ-5 as it is an all-purpose mount that will rigidly mount any small or portable scope up to 9Kg, even though I do not use it so much.

I recently took a 102mm f5 Startravel refractor and manual alt-az mount to a public astro event, along with a couple of cheap eyepieces. I aimed it at Jupiter, the Moon and Saturn. The public, young and adult, who had a look through it, were suitably impressed. So you probably don't need much for that initial 'wow' factor.

Thanks, bingevader.

That is certainly possible. I once re-figured a 4" low-quality telescope mirror myself, a long time ago. Unless the focal length is very short, it probably requires re-polishing rather than re-grinding. Thw question is, is it worth the bother? There is a suggestion that this is a Bird-Jones design whick means that the focal length of the mirror is a lot less than 1000mm. Even if you can successfully re-figure the mirror, the telescope tube might require some adaption (made longer or shorter) to get the reworked telescope to focus. My advice would be, that unless you are determined to attempt this as an experiment or optical project, you should use the telescope as it is, and look out for another second-hand telescope that better suits your needs. It is possible to buy new mirrors, but usually in larger and more desirable sizes, and there is a site selling cheap parts from smaller telescopes, whose name escapes me at the moment, who might have a suitable mirror or complete tube assembly.

I tried the above solutions but the problem persists.

You should not need the Barlow with such a long focal ratio instrument. I have tried using a Barlow with my f10 SCT but found that it rarely gave any improvement. ZWO sell inexpensive IR-cut and IR-pass filters to match the ASI224MC camera. You will need the IR-cut filter to get a correct colour balance in colour images. You may find a flip-mirror diagonal of great assistance in locating and re-finding some targets. And don't forget that essential piece of equipment that manufacturers don't like including - the dew shield. 🙂

While using my Celestron X-Cel LX 9mm eyepiece, I noticed a black flake obscuring the view. On trying to get rid of it I established that it is definitely not on or in the 1.25" nosepiece which contains a lens or lenses and which I managed to unscrew. It is associated with the larger body with the bigger lenses, but for some reason is only visible with the eyepiece assembled. I am reluctant to try disassembling the eyepiece further without some hints or tips or some idea of what I am dealing with.

That's entirely up to you. The bigger the scope, the heavier the subassemblies are, and the prospect of setting it up and taking it down at night becomes less appealing, and the bigger the bill when you fumble it and drop the OTA onto concrete. Personally I would not want anything bigger than an 8" in the CPC range, or a C9.25 if the OTA and mount will separate. Check the listed weights of these items, and if possible go see them in a showroom. Note that you need some way of holding onto a fat SCT OTA, and if working alone you need one hand to do up the clamps and one or two hands to hold it in place... Also note that these big expensive SCT outfits do not hold their new price well if you decide to sell them on, and you would be lucky to recover much more than half your initial outlay if you decide it's not for you. THe AZ-EQ6 should hold its value better.

That would work, but you don't need an equatorial at all for solar system viewing and imaging. An alt-azimuth mount is much less bother. On the other hand, for a C11 the choices of alt-azimuth mount are limited... The AZ-EQ6 GT isn't a lightweight mount, but you would have the option of putting a cheap Newtonian or a refractor on it for widefield, or using it with an imaging scope at some point. You can get the C11 as a CPC1100 for solar system viewing and imaging, but that is even heavier than your first choice and best kept in an observatory (or on wheels). 🙂 Personally, I'd suggest that you make a 'beginner' sized scope your first purchase, rather than jumping in with a costly, awkward to handle and more specialised setup. There is no rule that says you have to own just one scope, and your interests may change. 🙂