Mount advise

[refractions]

Hi all,

Well after an absence of 3 years due to work commitments. I'm now getting back into astronomy. I have a Meade 12" Classic on a Milburn wedge on a pier in my observatory. Unfortunately I turned the scope on the other day to see what the damage of it sitting unused had done. Completely dead

I replaced the 18v psu and now when I turn on the scope it tries to kill the psu - obviously a short somewhere. I'm taking it apart over the weekend to see if I can sort it - I'm a time served electronics engineer, so I know what I'm looking at

My question is - if the electronics are dead, what are my options? I was thinking about removing the OTA and replacing the mount. I always used my Meade as a guide scope with a 80mm APO scope piggybacked for imaging. All I can seem to find is what mount not to use if I was imaging through the Meade, but as I'm only guiding - I'm a bit stuck.

I like the look of the new Meade LX80 multi-mount, but I cant seem to find a pier mount adaptor for it. The only other option I can think of at the moment is selling the lot and giving up. I don't really want to do this as I've got about 14 years worth of equipment sitting around!!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Iain

[E621Keith]

Your best bet is to look for Meade electronic spares on Astroboot when it comes back.

If you think the LX200 mount is beyond repair then you should consider removing the tube and mount the scope get some tube rings and dovetail for it. The 12" Meade is a heavy scope, so you need to be looking at a Skywatcher EQ6 or Celestron CGEM as a minimum. Those two will also work well for imaging with an 80mm APO (without the 12" SCT riding along side of course).

I'd avoid the any new Meade mount. They have a poor reputation on the reliability. Meade had to recall all their LX800 last year. The LX80 also suffered serious quality control issue according to discussion on Cloudynights. If you are lucky, you may have to return it under warranty for repair, if you are unlucky and Meade goes under then you are stuck with a broken mount.