Piggyback Telescope on Meade LX 90 10 inch

[oldlancseng]

Hi All

Happy New Year

Looking for advice on Piggybacking a Coronado 90 Solar Scope on a 10 inch Meade LX90.

Cant seem to find if the mount can take the weight ( its around 23 pounds or 12 kg)

Cheers

Eddie t 

[alan potts]

I would say that even the LX200 which is heavier especially in the mount area would not take this without grumbling, even then it should be balanced, I wouldn't put it on mine and that is a 12 inch. I have a 70mm ED carbon fiber piggybacked and balanced below so there is little stress on the drives, this would be about a 1/4 of the weight you are thinking of. I would say don't do it.

Peter Drew knows alot about these scopes, I am sure he wound not object to a personal message.

Alan

[oldlancseng]

Thanks Alan

Sorry its taken so long to reply, and no its not been due to observing, weathers been terrible, computer problems.

Once again thanks for the advice

Eddie t

[cjdawson]

I did put a PST on my LX-90 once.  It was ok but not brilliant.  As you can see from my profile pic, it's already got an ST-80 piggy backed.  It was ok ish, but was a bit too wobbly on the 8" lx-90 mount.

Unless you really need tracking, I'd say get hold of a good quality photo tripod, a big manfrotto. And a trigger release ball head - I've see and used that setup, it worked wonderfully.  The ball head was used to reposition the scope using the trigger release - just needed to be careful about triggering as the scope could alter position very quickly (due to the weight)   once locked, it was solid as a rock and worked really well.

Also it means that your 12" scope isn't pointing at the sun (unless that's got a solar filter too) so works out to be a safer setup all round.

[Davey-T]

Here's my poor old LX200 groaning under the weight of piggy backed 100mm refracter and  Lunt LS60 Solar scope, counterbalance bar on the underside, still tracked Sun OK.

Dave