Meade LX200 8" replacement parts?

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

I fitted Bob's knobs on my 8" LX200, and managed to drop the secondary!
Result is a couple of small marks and some very faint scratches, see pic.

Can anyone advise how to fix it or replace it? please

Old age is a curse, I seem to drop something every time I touch anything these days.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi Chris.

Bugga. The damage looks to be superficial and some of the worst of it is possibly within the shadowed central region of the light cone. Provided the mirror holder was not damaged, you will still have full resolution and the light gathering will be essentially as before. The only possible downside may be an increase in scattered light, which may reduce contrast. If it was mine I would carefully fill the larger divots with matt black paint (on a very fine brush) to minimise scattering and diffraction, put it back together and continue to use it. Even significant surface damage really doesn't seem to do too much harm to a telescope, provided the figure and alignment of the optics is still OK. see https://astroanecdotes.com/2015/03/2...ting-incident/

cheers Ray

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

Thank you Ray,

Last night was total cloud cover so I didn't get the chance to check it out.
Had a check looking at the sun yesterday afternoon and it looked OK, but with the filter on of course.

If I find any issues I'll try your blackout suggestion.

Thanks again for your time and advice!
Chris