De-forking my Meade 10" LX200GPS and mounting it to an EQ6 Pro

[turbo_pascale]

I've de-forked my 10" scope in order to try and start imaging galaxies on my EQ6 mount.
This is a little tutorial of how to do it, and a whole bunch of things I would do diffferently.

In hindsight, I would have waited to have another pair of hands available to help with some of the fiddly bits.

I've miscalculated how big it was quite badly - It hits the observatory walls!
Time to re-think the ways to solve this.

https://youtu.be/yopjXoak--s

[Merlin66]

I've de-forked a few LX200 OTA.....
I couldn't get your YT link to work??


I have a write up somewhere of the method I successfully used, if interested I can upload.

[turbo_pascale]

Fixed the link.. don’t know what happened there.

No need for the write up. Got there in the end. Scratched up, but out of the forks!

Anyone know the paint code for Meade blue?

[Merlin66]

Whoooo
Looking at the video, I can well understand how the OTA can get scratched up.
That's the wrong way of doing it!!!
Unscrew one set of the Dec stub screws, then remove that side's Dec arm from the base, flip the mount over and remove the three screws from the other Dec stub and the OTA just drops out. Job done - no scratches.

[turbo_pascale]

If I had my time over....

[turbo_pascale]

After 3 days of trauma trying to get the 10" LX200 mounted on the EQ6, got myself polar aligned and focussed and getting some (test) photons. Fighting the dew as my dew shield pokes out of the dome! Need to do some trimming.

https://twitter.com/turbo_pascale/status/1269975087324655619?s=20

[Merlin66]

Rob,
What do you have mounted on the NEQ6??
A dual saddle, the 10" SCT...and what??

[turbo_pascale]

It's an EQ6 Pro.
Side-by-Side saddle plate.
10" LX200GPS OTA mounted via a narrow-to-wide adapter to a Losmandy dovetail bar (there's one of those on the top too).
Saxon 80ED as a "guider"

The imaging train on the SCT is:
- microfocuser (as modified by me with the ZWO EAF)
- adapter with a IDAS LPS filter
- Celestron 6.3 reducer
- OAG (as a spacer and potentially actually for guiding)
- 21mm spacer
- ZWO 8-position filter wheel
- ZWO ASI1600MM

The imaging train on the 80ED is:
- 2" bintel dual-speed crayford focuser
- 1.25" extension tube
- ZWO ASI190MM as the guide camera

It comes to balace with 20kg of counterweights, but it is pretty fully loaded.
Guiding looked pretty good given the circumstances, about +/- 1" most of the time.

[Merlin66]

Rob,
Checked through my old notes...
I have two paint references:
Krylon High Gloss, Regal Blue #1901
and
SKODA, #4633 Royal Blue

[turbo_pascale]

Thanks Ken.

I will go down to Autobarn and see what they come up with.

I just remembered I have the original finder in a case somewhere which should be the same colour. Might be worth taking that with me to see if they can match it.