First light for my Meade 12

[Defender]

Pretty dark skys tonight (normal for where i am), set up the Meade 12 and had a play, got some stunning veiws of clusters and a few big redish stars, couldnt find any nebulas, i noticed my 16mm EP wont resolve stars, they just look like they do with an out of foccus 26mm (is this normal?).

So i used the 26mm all night, added the barlow for extra good veiws.

I also broke my laser finder (it was broken before hand, i just tried to fix it and made it worse) the height level screw just wouldnt work so i thought i'd open her up and have a look, 3 springs come flying out, it's way beyond me to put it back together, i'll give the guys i bought from a call and see what they can do, cheers.

[John]

I'm assuming we are talking about a Meade 12" Lightbridge here ?. Apologies if thats not the case.

Stars should appear as pinpoints when properly focused, in all eyepieces. You may see 4 faint "spikes" coming from the brighter stars caused by the secondary support vanes.

The finder that comes with the scope is better replaced with a Telrad in my opinion - perhaps you could pursuade the dealer to give you one in exchange for the one that broke ?.

The 16mm eyepiece will focus at a very different position to the 26mm (the 26mm has a non-standard focus position I found)

A light shroud would be a good idea for the scope as well - you can either buy these or make one.

[swamp thing]

Hi

I don't know if the 12" lightbridge is the same as the 16" but with my 16" some eyepieces need the use of a tele extender to reach focus.

If it is the same as the 16" the extender should have come with the scope.

Although i expect you'll have to check this with another 12" owner.

Hope this is of some help:icon_scratch:

Regards Steve