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Meade LX200 14 inch GPS


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They really are good fun to use and your experience mirrors my own with the 12" LX200 I have used extensively in Namibia.  The Meade electric focuser had issues on that one as well and was replaced with a third party crayford to avoid having to deal with mirror flop, backlash etc.

 

I know what you mean about the noise though! Glad I am in the middle of the desert when I use it.  I used a 10" LX200 for my astrophysics masters project and the noise meant I went with the Celestron Nexstar 11 for my own scope after graduating as it was a lot quieter when slewing and I did not want to upset my neighbours.

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OK, I appreciate that it was perhaps a little over the top but somehow or other, I ended up hand-delivering the extension cable to Olly at Les Granges – after all, I did need to know that it had worked correctly ...........

This was my first visit to Les Granges and I have to say that Janie and I really enjoyed ourselves and I can confirm Olly and Monique’s legendary reputation for hospitality. Our room was tidy, comfortable, stacked with interesting books (although perhaps a little heavy on cycling tomes!) and our bedroom window overlooked the most magnificent views over the staggeringly beautiful mountain countryside in which Olly’s rustic home resides.

A guided tour of this astronomy oasis proved why Les Granges is so popular with astronomers as there is a wide range of instruments available for visitors ranging from a 20” Dobsonian to Olly’s weapon of choice – his dual Takahashi FSQ 106 equipped wide-field photon-grabber mounted on the Mesu 200 mount that first brought this device to my notice some years ago. Of course, Olly’s version of the mount is powered by steam rather than the ultra sophisticated electronics that my own Mesu mount uses but then – and this is the point - Olly sits up all night with his guests showing them the night sky and how to use the equipment to its best, whereas these days, I just go to bed and let the computer do all the work!

On the subject of the night sky, despite an unhelpful Lunar phase, the skies above Les Granges were without doubt wonderful and the ribbon of the Milky Way, so clearly visible overhead, was testimony to the lack of light pollution and the crispness of the atmosphere – we are talking ‘Alpine’ here!

And, now that Olly has the correct lead for the Meade 14” SCT (yes, it did work - phew!), you can even use this recently acquired instrument and focus it minutely for observing, although quite why you would want to observe when you could be imaging on that dual Tak rig is quite beyond me .........

Of course, you don’t have to use Olly’s gear, you can bring your own equipment and mount it on one of the two conveniently placed concrete plinths set aside for just this purpose.

Is there anything I didn’t like? YES there was one thing – Olly should be more generous with his skies, I want those skies here in the UK and I want them NOW ........

Of course, it isn't all about astronomy - even Les Granges has to accept daytime hours - and the surrounding countryside is breath-taking with cycling, climbing, parascending and simply driving around soaking up the views of wild rivers, high mountains and deep gorges to be enjoyed as well. Our visit to the Gorges de la Méouge will remain with us forever.

I am really looking forward to my next ‘excuse’ to visit. Errrrr, ummmm, are there any other technical issues I can help you with, Olly?

 

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1 hour ago, steppenwolf said:

Of course, it isn't all about astronomy - even Les Granges has to accept daytime hours

Yes, it's been two years since my visit, the skies may be awesome, but the daytime views do not lack appeal, here's the view from our bedroom:-

olly_window_2015.thumb.gif.995e25016a2dc5f560c71cd0ce2e57c8.gif

I doubt anybody can fault that view...

 

Huw

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2 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

OK, I appreciate that it was perhaps a little over the top but somehow or other, I ended up hand-delivering the extension cable to Olly at Les Granges – after all, I did need to know that it had worked correctly ...........

This was my first visit to Les Granges and I have to say that Janie and I really enjoyed ourselves and I can confirm Olly and Monique’s legendary reputation for hospitality. Our room was tidy, comfortable, stacked with interesting books (although perhaps a little heavy on cycling tomes!) and our bedroom window overlooked the most magnificent views over the staggeringly beautiful mountain countryside in which Olly’s rustic home resides.

A guided tour of this astronomy oasis proved why Les Granges is so popular with astronomers as there is a wide range of instruments available for visitors ranging from a 20” Dobsonian to Olly’s weapon of choice – his dual Takahashi FSQ 106 equipped wide-field photon-grabber mounted on the Mesu 200 mount that first brought this device to my notice some years ago. Of course, Olly’s version of the mount is powered by steam rather than the ultra sophisticated electronics that my own Mesu mount uses but then – and this is the point - Olly sits up all night with his guests showing them the night sky and how to use the equipment to its best, whereas these days, I just go to bed and let the computer do all the work!

On the subject of the night sky, despite an unhelpful Lunar phase, the skies above Les Granges were without doubt wonderful and the ribbon of the Milky Way, so clearly visible overhead, was testimony to the lack of light pollution and the crispness of the atmosphere – we are talking ‘Alpine’ here!

And, now that Olly has the correct lead for the Meade 14” SCT (yes, it did work - phew!), you can even use this recently acquired instrument and focus it minutely for observing, although quite why you would want to observe when you could be imaging on that dual Tak rig is quite beyond me .........

Of course, you don’t have to use Olly’s gear, you can bring your own equipment and mount it on one of the two conveniently placed concrete plinths set aside for just this purpose.

Is there anything I didn’t like? YES there was one thing – Olly should be more generous with his skies, I want those skies here in the UK and I want them NOW ........

Of course, it isn't all about astronomy - even Les Granges has to accept daytime hours - and the surrounding countryside is breath-taking with cycling, climbing, parascending and simply driving around soaking up the views of wild rivers, high mountains and deep gorges to be enjoyed as well. Our visit to the Gorges de la Méouge will remain with us forever.

I am really looking forward to my next ‘excuse’ to visit. Errrrr, ummmm, are there any other technical issues I can help you with, Olly?

 

Awe, you're most kind Steve. I was expecting it to be a great pleasure to meet you and Jane and, of course, it was. In spades. My robotic client was also delighted that you could fix his autofocus. I guess I had the wrong steam pressure going...

I'll post a bit more on the Meade 14 inch once its brass plaque arrives (naming it for Alan and currently in the post). Your cable will need honorable photographic mention as well. And there will also be, thanks to Jane, the floral connection between the Chanconbury Observatory and Les Granges.... I just need to find a competent daytime photographer for all this.

Sincere thanks for giving us a great couple of days.

Olly and Monique.

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Regarding the noise when slewing, it's recommended for Classic and GPS LX200's to set the max slew rate in the menus to a lower figure - less noisy, and reduces wear on the gearing.

GoTo's to planets are inaccurate because their ephemeris is so much more complex than for "stationary" stars- never use a planet as an alignment object.

To hit DSO's smack on every time, use the Synch function after centreing on a nearby known star, then GoTo the DSO.

Michael

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12 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Regarding the noise when slewing, it's recommended for Classic and GPS LX200's to set the max slew rate in the menus to a lower figure - less noisy, and reduces wear on the gearing.

GoTo's to planets are inaccurate because their ephemeris is so much more complex than for "stationary" stars- never use a planet as an alignment object.

To hit DSO's smack on every time, use the Synch function after centreing on a nearby known star, then GoTo the DSO.

Michael

Good idea on slew speeds. I'll do that. I don't have to worry about the noise but wear on the gears is best avoided. Thanks.

We found no need to re-synch during our first night out but, yes, it's an option. To everyone's surprise the GoTo was bang on all over the sky. Given a simple two star alignment we found this remarkable. I guess the mount's measurement of its own tilt plays a large part in its success. Pity we can't do GEM polar alignment this way!

Olly

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So, some finishing touches. Steve's cable with low profile 90 degree jack:

596387f87277d_Stevescable.jpg.a82c5c2e6859464ff14d75f22f0c3041.jpg

New cladding on the roll off. Note that the pod on the side is now an eyepiece pod rather than a PC pod! 

5963893a3ffbf_Recladshed.thumb.jpg.3fddbecc5dfe41c13d992276db753554.jpg

And last but not least...

Plaque.jpg.ae2deb58f5b8170054cd6f5de00fdef4.jpg

Olly

 

 

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6 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Good job Olly, my Meade was always spot on in Alt/Az GoTo mode, all went pear shaped once it was on a wedge :grin:

Dave

For me too, with my older 10 inch. This one is staying just as it is!

Olly

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9 hours ago, ian_bird said:

I remember that shed. As I recall - we did a very nice M31 from there.

Cheers

Ian

Indeed we did. The Taks (now a pair) have moved into a block built observatory on the other side of the path.

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  • 3 years later...
On 26/06/2017 at 10:18, ollypenrice said:

I've never been unreservedly keen on SCTs. They give large aperture from small volume, make great solar system imaging scopes, are very comfortable to use visually in Alt Az mode and have tended to give me eyepiece views which had the information but not, for me, the engaging thrill of being out in space. Somehow the stars weren't really pinpoint tiny and the backgrounds weren't as dark as I'd have liked. It's hard to explain but this opinion grew while I owned first an 8 inch and then a 10 inch Meade. (It wasn't down to collimation, which is easy to get right on an SCT.)  I've been very impressed by the only C11 I've tried, though. Anyway, rightly or wrongly it was was these expectations that I spent my first observng night with the 14 LX200 GPS kindly bequeathed to us by Alan Longstaff. I was in for a very big surprise...

5950c071412ac_scopeonpierWEB.thumb.jpg.81524a0023cfad2cea400bfaa18b904a.jpg

GPS and Go To. 

With the control panel on the south side (not the north as shown in the picture!) you set the tube to horizontal and pointing north, then ask the mount to align automatically. It performs an assortment of gyrations, twists and tilts to orientate itself before heading off to a star named in the handset. The first was Arcturus, which it missed by about 15 degrees. You centre this in the EP and confirm, whereupon it coffee-grinds its way over to a second star, Dubhe this time. It was in the EP. Encouraging. And that's it, you are now supposedly aligned. There is no need to set time, date or location since all come from the GPS.

Jupiter was up so we performed a GoTo and the planet was just out of the EP (a 26mm TeleVue Nagler giving 135x.) Not bad but not ideal for a complete beginner had the target been an obscure DSO. 'Going To' Saturn produced the same 'near but not quite' result. However, when we asked it to go to M22 it ground more coffee and, bang, there it was smack in the middle of the EP. And this remarkable precision on DSOs continued throughout the night and all over the sky. All present were mightily impressed. I suppose there is some minor glitch in the planetary ephemeris but it won't be a priority to sort it out since it's easy to find and centre the planets anyway.

The views.

I was knocked out. Tiny, tiny stars against the darkest of backgrounds. (We were SQM21.6 last night.) The Nagler allows, nay requires, you to move your head to find the field stop. The superb stellar quality was maintained edge to edge. The views were not just informative, they were beautiful. A favourite was M24, the Sagittarius Star Cloud. This was too big for the FOV, naturally, but cruising within it we found clusters within clusters and, notably, some lovely powdery patches of minute stars which I don't recall seeing before. This is the kind of view I love.

M51 wasn't perfectly placed but showed spiral structure, 'the bridge of light' and a satisfying scale and brightness at 135x. In fact we just left the 26 Nagler in all night, after quitting the planets.

M27 was very dumb-bell shaped, the central star was just visble in averted vision for me and, again, the scale and brightness were very rewarding. There was nothing of the 'fuzzy blob' about it!

The FOV is limiting with a 3.5 metre focal length but the sky is not short of targets at this magnification if you have the aperture to support it.

This and that.

Because we couldn't get the electronic focuser to work we were obliged to use the moving mirror focuser. It was OK, but has the well known backlash. Best to make your final focus a push of the mirror against gravity. Image shift was very slight and there's a mirror lock available.

We have the electronic focuser which seems to be a motorized Crayford, but its cable collides with the fork mount! (I've been seeking advice on this on another thread.) An alternative focusing socket on the fork higher up, and not mentioned in the manual, doesn't work.

5950ca5ba0a41_focusecable.jpg.8ab15a0baaf2651656f9e459bc73e460.jpg

 

One way or another we'll sort this out.

Grinding coffee. The scope is loud when on the move. We don't have neighbours nearby and Alan was two miles from the next house in Shropshire, but if you observe from an overlooked suburban garden the noise might very easily be an issue.

Stability. The tube is held stiffly in altitude but has quite a lot of elasticity in azimuth. This seems to have diminshed since we began running the scope a few nights ago and is not an issue for observing. I wouldn't want to try DS imaging without much more stiffness in the RA drive, but we have no DS imaging plans for this instrument. We want to let it do what it's good at.

Conclusion.

Because this scope was Alan's and was a gift from him I really wanted to like it. Happily, I do like it. In fact love it and can't wait to get out there with a long shopping list of targets. The views are just what I want telescope views to be and the excellent GoTo makes for an enjoyable evening's observing. A beginner can sit down at the scope with a list of objects and set off with no need of help from anyone else. OK, the FL is long and somewhat restricive but the aperture compensates for that by supporting high magnification. With a Telrad on top (not seen in the picture) a beginner can see where the scope is pointing and pick up a pair of binoculars to take a different kind of look at the same part of the sky.

That scruffy roll off in the background has now been re-clad in respectable marine ply and is awaiting a brass plaque identifying the scope simply as The Alan Longstaff Telescope.

Olly

PS The Wild Duck Cluster was Alan's favourite and it really was lovely in his scope. Its improbably geometric shape was shown to advantage by the smallness and brightness of its stars. I always think it looks like a distant space station. Wonderful. Roll on the coming of night.

 

 

 

Hi 

I appreciate this is an old post, but does anyone happen to know what Focal Reducers this scope is compatible with please ?

 

I assume a 6.3, but anything smaller/faster ?

 

Thanks

 

 

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19 minutes ago, KEJ said:

Hi 

I appreciate this is an old post, but does anyone happen to know what Focal Reducers this scope is compatible with please ?

 

I assume a 6.3, but anything smaller/faster ?

 

Thanks

 

 

The thing is that, with these scopes, you can obtain the widest possible FOV without a reducer by using a 2 inch back, diagonal and long focal length EPs. (The baffle tube imposes the final limit so the reducer doesn't get you anywhere visually.) There was an F3.3 reducer in the old days but this was intended for the tiny webcam chips which were popular in those old days. It didn't work for visual and nobody is using that kind of tiny chip any more. I suspect the same would be true of most faster reducers.

What would be your intended use if you found a fast reducer?

Olly

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11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

The thing is that, with these scopes, you can obtain the widest possible FOV without a reducer by using a 2 inch back, diagonal and long focal length EPs. (The baffle tube imposes the final limit so the reducer doesn't get you anywhere visually.) There was an F3.3 reducer in the old days but this was intended for the tiny webcam chips which were popular in those old days. It didn't work for visual and nobody is using that kind of tiny chip any more. I suspect the same would be true of most faster reducers.

What would be your intended use if you found a fast reducer?

Olly

Olly hi

Thank you for the prompt reply.

 

USA

Basically, I have a friend in the USA and he has a Meade SCT 14" LX200 GPS F10 and it would be purely in this instance for astrophotography.  I believe he has a 6.3 Reducer(waiting for him to confirm that) and because of the long focal length of his scope, I was wondering if anyone had used a 3.3 ?

My thinking, at least it will increase his field of view, speed it up and make it more forgiving for some DSO work, eventually possibly even looking to get it guiding with a guide scope etc.

 

UK

I have a Meade 8" SCT old LX10,  unfortunately with the clockwork RA and I would love to use that for some(or try to) DSO and I have 6.3 and 3.3 reducers, which I have used for taking pictures of the Moon etc and the results have been fine. Initially I did read that the 3.3 would not work(unless maybe that was relating to visual only).

 

A question on the side, out of interest do you know anyone that has de-forked a scope like mine and do you think something like a SW HEQ5 would be man enough( I seem to be having trouble finding out the exact weigh of the tube)?

The bigger mounts are more expensive and of course harder to move in and out and I was hoping something like this would work and not cost me a divorce !!!  (currently for DSO I have a WO Z61 , ASIAIR Pro and AZ-GTI which I love),

 

Thanks once again 

 

 

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KEJ,

The 8” OTA will sit nicely on a HEQ5.

I’ve used all the Meade SCT’s , 8”, 10” and 12”

I never found a good solution to using the x3.3 reducer. It was originally designed for use with small webcams.

 

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1 hour ago, KEJ said:

Olly hi

Thank you for the prompt reply.

 

USA

Basically, I have a friend in the USA and he has a Meade SCT 14" LX200 GPS F10 and it would be purely in this instance for astrophotography.  I believe he has a 6.3 Reducer(waiting for him to confirm that) and because of the long focal length of his scope, I was wondering if anyone had used a 3.3 ?

My thinking, at least it will increase his field of view, speed it up and make it more forgiving for some DSO work, eventually possibly even looking to get it guiding with a guide scope etc.

 

UK

I have a Meade 8" SCT old LX10,  unfortunately with the clockwork RA and I would love to use that for some(or try to) DSO and I have 6.3 and 3.3 reducers, which I have used for taking pictures of the Moon etc and the results have been fine. Initially I did read that the 3.3 would not work(unless maybe that was relating to visual only).

 

A question on the side, out of interest do you know anyone that has de-forked a scope like mine and do you think something like a SW HEQ5 would be man enough( I seem to be having trouble finding out the exact weigh of the tube)?

The bigger mounts are more expensive and of course harder to move in and out and I was hoping something like this would work and not cost me a divorce !!!  (currently for DSO I have a WO Z61 , ASIAIR Pro and AZ-GTI which I love),

 

Thanks once again 

 

 

Like Ken, above, I don't think the 3.3 will cover anything but a tiny chip. Mine didn't, for sure.

I did once defork a 10 inch. It isn't difficult, but do it with at least one extra pair of hands. It helps to get a scissor jack between the tines just at the moment of separation. Don't force it too hard (indeed hardly at all) but use it to get a few thou of extra clearance.

It might be worth raising the deadly of issue of F ratio as well. 😄 This has been done to death on here but, briefly, there is no equivalence between reducing F ratio by increasing aperture (the camera lens scenario) and reducing it by reducing focal length (the issue of this thread.) The real way to counteract the slowness of F10 is to increase the effective pixel size by binning 2x2 or 3x3. What matters is the ratio between area of aperture and area of (effective) pixel.  FOV is a different matter but, here, the limiting factor will soon become the edge of field distortions which defeat the reducer. These scopes will never give a large corrected circle.

Having gone through all this myself I concluded that the fork mounted SCT is best left as it is, in alt-az mode, and used for visual observing and planetary imaging. I found the wedge a nightmare to align and the mount far too springy and erratic for DS imaging. For DS a little Newt or small refractor, with a small-pixel camera, will do a better job more easily and the SCT will still be there to enjoy for what it does well. Four years on the 14 inch at the top of the thread is still exactly as it was then.

Olly

 

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15 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Like Ken, above, I don't think the 3.3 will cover anything but a tiny chip. Mine didn't, for sure.

I did once defork a 10 inch. It isn't difficult, but do it with at least one extra pair of hands. It helps to get a scissor jack between the tines just at the moment of separation. Don't force it too hard (indeed hardly at all) but use it to get a few thou of extra clearance.

It might be worth raising the deadly of issue of F ratio as well. 😄 This has been done to death on here but, briefly, there is no equivalence between reducing F ratio by increasing aperture (the camera lens scenario) and reducing it by reducing focal length (the issue of this thread.) The real way to counteract the slowness of F10 is to increase the effective pixel size by binning 2x2 or 3x3. What matters is the ratio between area of aperture and area of (effective) pixel.  FOV is a different matter but, here, the limiting factor will soon become the edge of field distortions which defeat the reducer. These scopes will never give a large corrected circle.

Having gone through all this myself I concluded that the fork mounted SCT is best left as it is, in alt-az mode, and used for visual observing and planetary imaging. I found the wedge a nightmare to align and the mount far too springy and erratic for DS imaging. For DS a little Newt or small refractor, with a small-pixel camera, will do a better job more easily and the SCT will still be there to enjoy for what it does well. Four years on the 14 inch at the top of the thread is still exactly as it was then.

Olly

 

Thank you for the advice

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On 06/03/2021 at 06:46, Merlin66 said:

KEJ,

The 8” OTA will sit nicely on a HEQ5.

I’ve used all the Meade SCT’s , 8”, 10” and 12”

I never found a good solution to using the x3.3 reducer. It was originally designed for use with small webcams.

 

Thank you

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  • 2 months later...

Read this review before I realised it was 4 years old! That's a great review olly and I found myself nodding away as I read it. I have an obsy mounted 12gps that's been in there 17 years now.  I must admit when I first bought it I fully intended to wheel it out each session, I managed that a handful of times before I realised I had two options, sell it or build a permanent home for it.  These scopes really are beasts, and its not just the weight, they are incredibly awkward to handle in my opinion. So I got myself a milburn wedge and plonked it on that. Its sat there ever since. The advantage of the setup is that I rarely do an alignment. I park it after each session then initialise it and away I go. If there are any issues with goto I simply synch and that's it.  I would certainly agree these are not AP scopes, but there is a caveat to that in that you can produce pleasing astrophotos with them if you know their limitations, particularly with todays sensitive cameras and the ability of stacking. I have a little wo 66 I piggyback that I use occasionally.  Certainly better than my efforts many years ago trying to keep a star on the crosshairs of an OAG!! I have also had some great planetary sessions over the years, sometimes seeing comes along that surprises you with these scopes.  So nice to hear the old LX200 getting a good review.

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