Upgrade mount/drive for an old Meade LX3

Anyone have any suggestions to help a newbie? Bought an old lx3 and
the drive is not keeping objects centered (after proper polar
alignment).

Thanks,
Craig

Hi, Craig!

Welcome to the wonderful world of amateur astronomy and telescopes!

To get at your problem, we need a little more information. I'm familiar
with the model scope you have (I have a 10" LX3 that's now an LX5, but I
still have both drive bases, and both are still perfectly functional), so
let's ask a few questions...

Is the red (Power) light on the console lit while you're observing? And
if so, can you hear the motor drive running? Are objects just slowly
drifting out of the field (like everything is working, but something is
just not adjusted properly) or is everything moving out of the field as if
there was no motor drive movement at all?

Does your tripod have a bubble level? And if so, did you level the tripod
with the bubble level before you performed your polar alignment?

Once the tripod head was level, did you adjust the equatorial
wedge/telescope base mounting plate accurately to the angle of your
latitude?

Note here; if you adjust the mount so that the scope's polar shaft is
pointing in exactly the right place, a level tripod isn't really
necessary, but it helps make the process easier to repeat if it is level,
and you do it the same way each time. Note also, that if you always
observe from home, you should never have to set your wedge again (unless
you take it apart for some reason), if you set up with a level tripod.
After the first time, just level the tripod carefully and the polar shaft
should be at the right latitude angle, so all you have to do then, is get
it pointed north properly...

Does your scope have the polar alignment finderscope? Or does your tripod
use a magnetic compass to find North? If it has the polar finderscope, is
the scope aligned well with the main scope? If it has the magnetic
compass, did you apply the correct offset from indicated North for your
location? Describe how you performed your polar alignment...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272


"craig510a3" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone have any suggestions to help a newbie? Bought an old lx3 and
the drive is not keeping objects centered (after proper polar
alignment).

Thanks,
Craig

Hi:

In addition to Jan's comments...

You say it's "properly polar aligned"...how did you do this. Unless you
have a dead-on polar alignment...not just pointing the scope forks at
Polaris, you're going to have some drift.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of:_Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html

On 30 Apr 2005 10:06:11 -0700, "craig510a3"
wrote:

Anyone have any suggestions to help a newbie? Bought an old lx3 and
the drive is not keeping objects centered (after proper polar
alignment).

How is it misbehaving? How accurate was your polar alignment? The
polar alignment tool that LX3s have using the finder scope isn't all
that precise. Is the drive set for the correct rate? Unless someone
who didn't know what he was doing tampered with the drive base, the
original LX3 drive ought to perform well.

Jan,

Thanks again for you help with my corroded mirror thread a few weeks
ago. I sent my telescope to Meade and should have it back in two more
weeks with new optics. Very excited.

To answer your questions the Motor is humming, and I am usually pretty
level. After reading your response I know that I have been off on the
polar alignment. My yard has so many trees that it has been very
difficult to polar align with any precision. The image drifts left to
right. I guess still in the learning curve.

Another question: What do you recommend for padding vibrations?

"craig510a3" wrote in message
oups.com...
Jan,

Thanks again for you help with my corroded mirror thread a few weeks
ago. I sent my telescope to Meade and should have it back in two more
weeks with new optics. Very excited.

To answer your questions the Motor is humming, and I am usually pretty
level. After reading your response I know that I have been off on the
polar alignment. My yard has so many trees that it has been very
difficult to polar align with any precision. The image drifts left to
right. I guess still in the learning curve.

Another question: What do you recommend for padding vibrations?


Hi, Craig,

Frankly, I don't use anything. My scope damps out pretty quickly. But
the various brands of vibration suppression pads are decent investments.
They work as advertised. Still, unless you are specifically having a
problem with excess vibration, I'd go with the scope as is... I tend to
upgrade my scopes to the hilt, but that isn't one of the things I ever
felt I *had* to have...

Better is to just make sure that everything in the mount and wedge is
*tight*, and that the spreader is locked tightly against the tripod
legs...

I used Motofocus units for years, and later added a JMI NGF-S focuser
(using both together, in recent years), to minimize hand-induced
vibrations during focusing, while allowing critical focusing without
moving the mirror. But a simpler solution to smooth focusing may be the
Peterson Engineering EZ Focus kit. I recently installed one on my 10",
and I like it a lot...

Jan