8" Meade LX90 drive training

[saturn10]

Hi,

How often is drive training required and does it make any difference to pointing accuracy.

Thanks,

Rob

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Ya Saturn, really you need to spend a little time in leveling the tripod first and check the level in all directions, not used mine for a while, but I always set the tripod in roughly the same orientation as the previous set up and spend a bit of time leveling in all directions first before putting the tube assembly on, point it north to polaris and level the tube, put my balance weight on then the 2" star diagonal, then the hyperion in the eye end, balance the tube assembly and then I'm ready to go. It does take a little time to set up so usually I get the dob out and leave the Meade in doors, but thinking back the tracking was usually ok for visual work, not needing to train the drives, and all objects were in the low power field of view after a 2 star alignment, but not sure wether your imaging or not Take care and Clear Skies Paul.

[saturn10]

Hi Paul,

I use it for mainly visual, its normally quite good once setup, I use a spirit level and wondered if it was worth drive training.

thanks,

Rob

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Ya Rob, certainly you can train the drives by all means, but the LX in my opinion works great visually, that's all I use it for. Glad that your taking time to set the mount up, but from what I can see, when I set the mount up and level the tripod, it works flawlessly, I had a problem with the power lead becoming unattached from the power panel, but I placed a velcro strap around the cord against one of the fork arms to stop it happening again. I've had mine for a year or two now and to be honest I've never had the need to train the drives, once I do a 2 star align, I centre the stars by de-focusing the image to get it central, on to the next star and de focus the image and centre it on the shadow ' in the middle' and never fails to align making sure that the stars I choose are far enough apart and if possible at the other end of the sky to the first to increase accuracy. I always use the 36mm Aspheric to locate objects and they are always in the field of view. I'm really pleased with the LX though only wish I lived at a dark sky site instead of the light polluted West Midlands, buts its nice just to search and sweep the sky with my dob when not using the LX. Take Care Rob and I'm sure that your as happy as me with the LX - Regards Paul.