LXD55 mount any good???

[kuro]

Posted this in the beginners section but i thought id try here.

I have a chance of getting one of these mounts.

Are they any good?

[E621Keith]

Essentially an EQ4 with Meade electronics.

What are you going to use it for? If you want to mount a 127 mak for visual it will probably work fine. It you want to imaging with it, it will be a poor option.

How much are they asking for? There are plenty of used CG5 and EQ5 out there.

[kuro]

No imaging, but like the sound of goto facility.

its under £200, i have seen some going for well over that.

[kuro]

Also noticed that the synscan eq5s and celestron equivilents seem to be a lot more expensive.

[Si W]

The LXD55 is a Vixon Hybrid, the head of the mount is the same as a LXD75 except it's black, however they do have nylon cog's rather that the LXD75 which are aluminium, Meade phased the LXD55 out because of it's dodgy tripod and cog's, they can handle upto a 30lb payload, and the goto accuracy is not to bad, Meade's LXD55/75 don't have an ST4 guide ports. If you ever consider Astrophotography dont exceed 15 Ib it will seriously effect auto guiding, i have the SN10 which is 30Ib and pushes the upper limit of it's guiding/tracking, at best with a maximum payload you will only get two minutes un-guided, however visual work an OTA of 30lb is your limit, personal i would go with 20-25lb max, I use my LXD75 for Astrophotography using two scopes on a bar, the main scope is a short 120mm refractor f4.9 and a etx90 as the guide scope with a focal length of 1250mm f13.8 to iron out the errors on the main camera, it auto guides very well and would also be good for DLSR work to, what i will say is both mount are quite noisy, other than that not a bad mount equivalent to an eq5 on payload but not as accurate, it's worth £200, i wouldn't pay anymore for it.

[m.tweedy]

try Here

Weasner's LXD55/75 Site

I found it invaluable when I owned an LXD55 mount.

I have to say it was a bit lightweight for what I wanted but a lot of people seem to have no problems.

[kuro]

The guy who I bought it of used it for imaging and said he is going to send some examples to me. He also has said that he will be there for me if i have any questions/problems.

I had read that they were equivilant to the eq5, anyway for now i am just using it for a startravel 102 so will be fine for that.

I actually paid £170 + 25 delivery so well happy.

£170 for a goto eq5 mount has got to be a good thing

[kuro]

try Here

Weasner's LXD55/75 Site

I found it invaluable when I owned an LXD55 mount.

I have to say it was a bit lightweight for what I wanted but a lot of people seem to have no problems.

Just had a quick look at this site. Ill know wher to go if things go wrong. Thanks