Meade LX90 10" with Atik Titan Color

[Draco]

Hi.

I have a meade lx90 10" and just bought an atik titan color.

I have a meade f/33 reducer. I am aware that this shouldn;t be used for ACF, but am not too particular about the aberrations at this stage.

Visually, I can see jupiter/mars/saturn using the eyepiece. When I swap the eyepiece with the reducer (so I have the reducer+30mm Tadapter+titan) I am unable to see anything on the computer screen :(

I spent a lot of time trying to play with the focus knob on the meade but I could'nt get anything on the computer.

Is there anything obvious that I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

[Nino]

Nice, have you try changing the exposure, I have an lx200 ten inch when I put on a Barlow I have to increase the exposure. Cheers John

[redbeard]

Hi,

I would not use the focal reducer as it does not help with planets as you want to magnify them. A focal reducer will make them smaller. A 2.5x powermate or a barlow is the way to go. But, I suggest just remove the focal reducer for now to make life easier.

Your focus point will be different with an eyepiece as with the camera and you will get a much bigger image using the camera than what you will see in the eyepiece. Planets are a little hard to get into view without practice. If you have a finder scope that is perfectly aligned with your scope, then that will help aligning the planets.

Focus is also an issue... see if you can get focus with your camera on a far away streetlight or moon and then you will be in a much closer position to be focused on the planet.

Also, just because the planet is in the FOV when you use the eyepiece, don't expect it to be in the FOV when you attach your camera. The different weight will have the scope in a slightly different position and even if that did not change, the camera usually does not line up exactly the same as the eyepiece.

I find planets hard to get in the FOV most nights. When you do, don't lose it!

Cheers,

Damien.

[Draco]

Thanks Nino and Damien

I braved the cold last night again and had some success. My results varied this time more because I think I had my scope aligned better this time. With the eyepiece, when I Goto'd to an object, I had the object almost in the center of FOV. Previously it wasn't as accurate.

So here is what I did. I used the eyepiece to align the telescope (this is what happens when I start my LX90, it uses GPS and two stars to align). Next, I put in the reducer and found jupiter. Jupiter was tiny and I guess its because the reducer gives a more wider view of the sky. So yay, I managed to get to Jupiter. It was on the edge of FOV with the camera to had to get it into the center.
Then I took out the reducer and just used the tadapter from the reducer and the titan. Jupiter had almost slipped out of FOV but luckily I saw it at the edge and managed to get it centered.
I found that 1s exposures gave a ghostly white image, so I started playing with the exposures. Increasing it higher than 1s just made it worse. So I started reducing it and hey presto, I got to 0.01s and I saw bands of Jupiter :) Its a raw and still looks grainy. Also the raw looks dimmer than what I saw on the computer screen :(

Unfortunately, when I slewed to Mars/Saturn, I didn't have much luck and I guess Damien pointed it out quite well. Since I had initially aligned the telescope with just the eyepiece, and then had swapped it out with the camera, the weight change might have slightly changed the setup, which meant I didn't quite land on the objects and the planets moving, the precision wasn't enough :(

Any pointers on how I can just go straight to having the tadapter and camera instead of using eyepiece to align, and then swapping to reducer and then taking the reducer out?

[redbeard]

What I do is use a laser pointer mounted on the scope. This needs to be aligned perfectly with the scope so they point at exactly the same thing. I turn on the laser and use the hand control box to centre the object that the laser pointer is pointing at. If that still does not work, I then carefully remove the camera, put in the eyepiece, centre object, (even if out of focus, can still centre), and carefully put the camera back. Sometimes this take a bit of trial and error. I have a 10" LX200 and another way is to use the guide scope on top of the Meade with it's own camera, and use some image capture software to show the image on the screen. Again you will have to align the guide scope perfectly with the main scope, but this can help alot if all is aligned.

I always struggle a little with finding the planets but once you get it, keep it in the FOV. I have to setup my scope each time as I don't have a obs, so some nights are better than others, if you have an observatory, things are always easier.

Another thing is if you have an aligned finder scope check it has a cross hair in the middle because centering an object in the FOV by eye without the cross hair, is quite hard to be accurate.

Again, the focal reducer is not really used for planets because it makes them too small and less signal, use a powermate, or a barlow to magnify. Using anything that magnifies the image will make the image even harder to get into the FOV as there is more magnification.

Another thing to try to find the planets could be to use the focal reducer with the camera to find the planet, it should be easier as you have a wider FOV, then take out the focal reducer and hopefully still close to FOV.

Glad you are seeing something!

Cheers,

Damien.

[Draco]

Thanks Damien

I struggle with my stock standard Meade finder scope. the screws that are available to align it to the telescope are soo hard to use! I always have to spend at least 20min trying to get my finder scope alined to the the same object my telescope is looking at (use the neighbors antenna or a distant street light for aligning)

Have a great weekend mate