M53, and a $3.15 piece of kit

[Jon]

Here are a couple of images of M53. I quite like the good one, given the low altitiyde (about 22 degrees) and strong moonlight last night. The poor one was the night before, just posted for comparison. The difference? A $3.15 piece of kit (http://homepage.isomedia.com/~cvedeler/scope/mirrorlock.htm) assembled courtesy of Bunnings to lock the focus on the LX200 Classic.

The decent image is 21 x 3 min subs, ISO 800

[Poita]

Amazing! I'll have to try that on the LX50.

[Poita]

Did you find all the bits at bunnings?

[DavidNg]

What a difference Jon. My Sbig camera was plagued with frosting for many months even after numerous oven baking and burned desiccants. I too went to Bunning for a couple of O-rings cost $2.50 for 10. Frosting was history since, still 9 O-rings to spare. :)

[Jon]

Yes - I had to get them to cut a 6" piece of 1/4" threaded steel, as they had no bolts that size; also I used 13mm irrigation tube connector instead of nylon spacers.

To be fair, my second crap image has been very badly processed. It was so out of focus because I'd screwed the mirror lock in too tight and it was distorting the mirror after I'd already focused it.

[Gem]

I wonder about a Celestron C9.25 equivalent... :question:

[Poita]

The 9.25 doesn't have the shipping lock threads unfortunately. I used to use one of these and a SCT Crayford:
http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/misc/focuslk/index.htm\\ (http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/misc/focuslk/index.htm)
It helped a bit, and the crayford is a must I reckon, but this solution is the best I've seen.
http://www.marsastro.org/presentations/MARS_Mirror-Lock.pdf