MEADE LX 90 ACF first night --> eyepiece issues

[DcifrThs]

hey guys,

this forum seems perfect for this. i'm visiting my friend in cancun and brought with me (through customs and everything) the 116pound telescope hoping to see the YU55 asteroid last night. unfortunately, we saw nothing. literally nothing.

we've troubleshot this to the best of our abilities and tried to find threads focusing on it but there are only threads on 1/2 of the problems. we're having 2 main ones:

1. aligning the telescope. we've tried this numerous times and after each time it says "alignment successful" we do a logic test where we tell it to go to the moon. it's never even close. one time it got within maybe 5-6 degrees of it but still, way off.

but more worrying,
2. we can't ever see anything through the 26mm eyepiece. literally nothing. it's just always black (and yes the lens cover is most certainly off). i thought perhaps this was due to the moon being so bright last night but we saw the moon and some stars fine (though that doesn't say much at all).

it seems to me that 2 may prevent us from doing 1 right. any help/insight/thoughts?

thanks so much in advance!!

[mozzie]

hi barron
first issue dont worry about moon and planets there never usually in the field of view,there not a fixed point in the sky thus the computer in the telescope is only giving roughly where it is just move the scope to the moon using the hand controller..
but your main problem is not seeing anything in the eyepiece how can you centre your alignment stars if you cant see anything so there is a problem there before you even start.don't know what the problem is maybe theres a cap on something coming out of the rear cell or your not looking square on into the eyepiece..

[DcifrThs]

thanks for responding. i thought the same thing so i'm now wondering, what exactly should i be seeing with the eyepiece. both myself and my friend are not idiots and very logical people. we tried everything we could think of so it is either a factory problem or something we didn't think of. im gunna bet a massive amount on the latter. we tried double checking every component, separating the eyepiece to verify nothing was obstructing the view. we looked directly into the hole in the telescope tube where the eyepiece connects as well as through the eyepiece itself. both worked fine separately,b ut together, just yield darkness and nothing at all through the eyepiece when connected to the telescope.

so can you describe what we SHOULD see, for instance, if we pointed the telescope at a starry section of the night's sky (manually)?

thanks again

[Stu Ward]

Is your focusser moving in and out ?

[DcifrThs]

i'm not 100% sure what you're asking but every time we try to view something, we've moved (what i think is) the "focusser" all the way one way and the other to be sure.

everything we've done has resulted in no improvement/actual objects in the eyepiece.

[Poita]

Does it have a finder scope?
Go inside, and point the telescope at a light, take out the eyepiece and look into the hole where the eyepiece goes.
Do you see light? If you only see darkness then either the cover is on the scope, or there is still a cap on the diagonal or you have a serious problem. Take out the diagonal and see if there is any light. Still black? then remove the visual back and see if there is any light. (Also look in the front of the scope, you should be able to see yourself reflected clearly in the mirror)

If you can see light through the scope, then take it outside (stay away from the sun!) and point the scope at a distant tree or building. Put the eyepiece in and try and focus on the distant object, you should be able to see it clearly. (If it is night-time then use the moon, or a distant lit building). Let us know how that goes first.

Are you sure you are moving the focuser and not the mirror lock?

[mozzie]

lx 90 doesn't have mirror lock,they must be moving the focuser..it does seem strange though...are they looking properly into the eyepiece i remember when i was starting out if you don't look directly into the eyepiece it was just darkness.!!!!!!

[Poita]

Ah, my mistake, I thought the ACF model had mirror lock.

Re black when looking through eyepieces, that is why I asked them to remove the eyepiece and diagonal and look into the telescope to see if any light was coming through, and into the front to ensure they can see through it that way....
I've left an endcap on a diagonal before.:P

[DcifrThs]

hey guys,

thanks again for the thoughtful posts. here's an update:

1. called customer support and did the troubleshooting "look for something in the daytime"... duh...why didn't we think of that. confirmed the eyepiece worked and we saw the paint on the balcony of the building 100yrds away.

2. pointed it at the little dipper and saw stars after a LOT of focus bar moving. did this a ghetto way though (used the screws on the front/back of the telescope tube - top and bottom- to 'align' the object in the telescope's field of view). turned out we decided we were very unlikely looking at those stars and instead, stars somewhere farther out but we couldn't tell. the issue here was that we could pretty much see the stars better with our naked eyes so it seemed most likely the stars we saw in the telescope were much farther away.

3. then tried to hit terrestrial objects (a boat, city lights far away, and finally when those failed, a building about 1/4mi away). the only thing we saw was the building and i was pretty shocked at the lack of incredible detail i expected. it's a 12" but i was expecting to be able to see like ear hair on a dude's head at that distance. so this was also rather confusing. i guess 77x isn't really that much?

4. finally gave up when we weren't really able to see anything.

note: we were doing this observing from a balcony w/ like maybe 5-10degrees of viewing from the top/bottom of the balcony and about 100ish degrees side to side. so we didn't do the one/two star align procedure.

any thoughts about this would be most appreciated!

[DavidTrap]

Have you adjusted the three bolts in the black circle on the front of the scope?

If so, you have probably disturbed your "collimation" or optical alignment.

I suggest you find a local astronomy club and see if someone can help you out in person.

DT

[Poita]

Could you post a photo of your scope and label the parts, such as the top and bottom screws you adjusted and the focus bar and the eyepiece etc. we are not familiar with your terminology and it is hard to know exactly what you are doing and how to help. It almost sounds as if you are just adjusting and looking through the finder scope!

[mozzie]

hi barron
i had a 12"lx90 and the views i got of the night sky were excellent and it was'nt the acf model... i use to train the drives with a tree 300 meters away with a 12mm and was able to hone in on a small mark on the tree and crystal clear views... sounds like you have a problem there more then likely collimation or a focuser problem... your in the states you may need to find someone with meade lx90-lx200 experiance and set the scope up for you and get you in the wright direction..